


The Hour of Stories

by starstuddedsin



Series: Monrovia [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Asphyxiation, Boypussy, Dubious Consent, Humiliation, Large Cock, M/M, Piss kink, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstuddedsin/pseuds/starstuddedsin
Summary: Anka is part-human, part-dryad, and a former whore. Now that he has left the cruel human nation of Monrovia for the elven nation of D'laniara, he struggles with bad memories. More than that, he struggles to connect with other elves, who seem to be different from him in every way.In a wild attempt to make friends, he agrees to go with Tai'vi, a fellow dryad, to the baths of Sand-in-the-Mists, where the elves of their age congregate. He does not expect to be drawn into a strange elven tradition there.The Hour of Stories. Where perhaps not every tale is completely true, but every tale is most assuredly a bit dirty.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Monrovia [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783531
Comments: 50
Kudos: 150





	1. The Bathing Palace

On the southernmost island, the island of Sand-in-the-Mists, are the baths of the rellis, the most blessed of young ones. 

Rellis, of course, are elves that are not quite mature, but are not children, either. Rellis are elves that have had their first heats, and are ripe and ready to bear children for their elders. Rellis are to be protected and cherished, oft-times even spoiled. And so the baths of Sand-in-the-Mists were long-ago reserved for them, so that they might have a place to themselves.

Anka did not frequent the baths. 

He didn't need to. Every island in the elven nation of D'laniara had its lagoons, and each lagoon was assigned to some three or four families to serve as a bathing pool. Anka's family, the elven clutchline called Weds-Leaves-To-Sea, shared its bathing pool with Watches-The-Sky and Honors-the-Roots and Guards-the-Branches, and with some non-elven friends. Their pool was in a large cave, burbling up from a freshwater river that thrummed with naiad song. Anka's clutchline had it for eight hours each day and eight hours each night.

More than enough time to bathe himself. And more than enough time for the use of his children; his uncle Kouvi; his uncle's spouse, Orrak; and a few more friends informally adopted into their household. For Anka and those friends, the aforementioned non-elves, the communal bathing had been a bit of a shock, but they had acclimated. 

Anka, for his part, now enjoyed it. The water in their pool was warm and clear, and he had liked learning to swim in it. He liked even more to be still in it. To sit on a little ledge and relax, seeing how the bright, clear blue water played lights on the walls of the cave. He would always have a few seconds to do that, even if soon enough his children, Kip, Kalki, and Elly, would interrupt the fragile peace of this by then cannonballing into the water.

But he didn't mind even that. It was a joy to spend time with them. To scold them for splashing, and to hold them close while he washed out their hair and made sure to scrub behind their ears. 

His little ones. Born from him, carried by him. Elly was his smallest and oddest, and the one that knew him best. Kalki was his wildest, always concocting excuses for which mummy should forgive him a bit of wickedly fun splashing. And Kip was his gentlest -- much, much larger than his brothers, not elven-looking in the least -- but _sweet_ , sweet as his uncle Orrak, who he resembled a great deal. 

In Monrovia, a nation of humans, carrying these children had made Anka perverse. In D'laniara, the nation of elves, it made Anka worthy of respect.

Not that he was ever disrespected here. His countrymen were kind to him. Gentle with him. From the moment he'd alighted on D'lani shores about six months ago, it had been to find himself plied with attention from mature, handsome naiads and dryads. Elves of siring age. They came to visit him during the day, and stopped to call greetings up to his nest at night. They sang out little flirtatious ditties to him when they saw him in the branches, and stepped aside with proper elven bows when he passed them on the roads.

He was popular. Liked.

Wanted.

It frightened him sometimes. Not that it should have. No dryad or naiad would touch him without invitation, he'd been told. They were not like humans. They would listen, if he told them no.

Still, they seemed to want a _yes_ dreadfully. Anka could not give that yes. Perhaps in time he would. But right now, as things were, he would close his eyes at night and fall into his past, feel the nightmares of his time in the human world building and churning in him, leaving him terrified, but pitiably wet and needy, too.

So, when sung to flirtatiously, or bowed to respectfully, Anka tended to go green and scurry away as fast as possible.

Little wonder, then, that he had few friends among the mature dryads or naiads. His friend Hil'ki was old enough to sire a clutch, yes. But that was it. And Kouvi was his friend, and he was mature as well, but. Well. Kouvi was also his uncle. 

So perhaps Anka wasn't really popular. 

For young, clutch-bearing dryads and naiads, the antidote to this was to find friends their own age. Other mothers, or those who might become mothers. But Anka was painfully shy about this. He felt embarrassed among the other dryadlings, the heart-stoppingly lovely, golden-haired, brown-skinned ones. The ones that flirted openly with their elders, that courted and laughed and seemed to have no troubles to speak of.

Anka wasn't like them. He didn't even look like them. He was the only dryad to be pale -- such an ungainly, washed-out color he had -- and to have such dark hair and eyes. Kouvi said he was like an ink-black sea-bird, and Anka thought that must be true. And of course everyone was kind to him, but the other rellis -- the other young mothers -- treated him with a sort of respectful remove. 

Was he even an elf to them? It was hard to say. Anka was half-human, raised entirely in the human nation of Monrovia. He could not even speak D'lani properly. He still had a decided Monrovian accent.

"Anka," Hil'ki often told him, "our people _admire_ you. If you would only reach out to them, you would see that they like you!"

But he was afraid they might not. And he already had so many people who did seem to like him now. Really like him, in a way that did not demand he serve them or bare himself to them. He had Hil'ki and Kouvi and Orrak; he had a grandfather and he had his children; and he even had human friends, Euphemia and Mr. Audley, and even sometimes the polite camaraderie of _their_ friend, the great wolf-man Wrollf, Jem. None of these people wanted to fuck or hurt him. They always seemed only to want to talk to him, pass time with him. He was really very lucky in that sense. 

He did not want to push his luck. It really seemed inconceivable to think that he might ever find more acceptance than this.

So he was not entirely sure why he agreed to go to Sand-in-the-Mists. 

It was said to be good fortune. It was very popular with elven mothers. And it was simply -- custom. If a young elf was blessed with a clutch, then that young elf had earned a place in the warm, lovely mothers' baths, earned a place in the mothers' circle.

So said his friend Hil'ki and Hil'ki's brother-in-law, Tai'vi.

"You will like it, Anka," Tai'vi promised, kissing Anka's two green-tipped thumbs in the traditional gesture of blessing and affection, before they paddled out to Sand-in-the-Mists. "I promise."

"And if he does not, you will bring him back at once," Anka's uncle Kouvi said firmly. He and Hil'ki were standing just behind them on the sands, surveying Tai'vi's canoe. "Anka-Eleyi need not do anything he does not wish to. Not here."

He, too, kissed Anka -- the top of Anka's head -- with almost paternal affection. 

Hil'ki, though he and Anka were only friends, seemed to sense that Anka needed more than that. He gathered Anka up into his arms. Though he was a mature dryad, he was not as tall as most mature dryads. If he'd been a man, he would have been of medium height. But his shoulders were broad and his arms well-muscled and athletic, and Anka liked being embraced by him. Hil'ki never seemed to do it with any kind of grasping want. 

Perhaps this was why Anka's whole body -- a body he had little desire to show to anyone not of his own clutchline, anyone he did not _trust_ \-- warmed a bit, being held by him.

"You will dazzle them," Hil'ki told him firmly. "Everyone will be delighted by you, Anka, and will want to know you better."

But Anka did not feel he could trust in this, and stared with no small amount of anxiety back at the shore as Tai'vi's spouse, Yann, rowed them out and southwards.

-

He had to leave his clothes in a great hall made of living trees. 

He was not normally self-conscious about stripping. Anka had spent a great deal of his life naked. But rarely had he stripped in front of other young elves. Tai'vi was also peeling off his clothes, revealing his child-rounded belly, pretty little brown cock, and milk-swollen brown breasts with their green-tinged nipples. He rubbed them a bit offhandedly. The sight was rather nice. Anka looked away, ashamed of himself. Yann -- a mature elf who was the sire to all Tai'vi's clutches -- was just outside, smoking a cheroot of spiced grass.

"None of that, pretty," Tai'vi clucked at him. "You are among your peers now. No one minds if you want to look at us. They will be looking at _you_ , you know--"

"They will?" Anka stammered out.

He didn't know why it frightened him. Plenty had looked at him. For years, to be looked at and touched and fucked to soreness was all he'd been good for. But since coming to D'laniara he'd had his own little nest-corner with his children, away from eyes or hands he did not want.

It was like -- like being a _person_. 

He must have stepped back, against the tree wall. He must have shown his fright. Because now Tai'vi's gaze went soft and worried for him.

The pretty blond elf ran a hand through Anka's hair, loosing a hank of it from its braid.

"It's alright, love," he said. "What happens here is -- it won't be anything you hate. I promise. And it won't be spoken of outside of this hall. It won't be used to embarass you. Come on, love."

And he tugged Anka towards a great door, carved of coral, at one end of the hall.

Beyond, there were the baths.

Anka had thought there would be one pool. Just one, as he had in his own little lagoon, for his own little clutch. One they could spend an hour of relative privacy in.

There were three. Three huge pools, their sunken walls made of naiad pearl. Some thirty or forty young elves frolicked in them. These elves were not children, not little, like his Elly, Kalki, or Kip. But neither were they mature. They were like Anka. Fertile, of an age to bear children. Many had rounded bellies like Tai'vi, and chests plump with milk. They swam and dove and laughed, and sat close by the side of the pools, smoking cheroots. Their laughter echoed off the hall.

Tai'vi caught Anka's hunted expression again.

"Too many?" he hummed. "Come, darling. We'll go to one of the smaller halls."

"There are more?" Anka managed.

There were two more halls beyond the great one, with pools dappled by a ceiling of leaves; pools whirling with hot, lovely water; pools sunken so deep only naiads seemed to frequent them. Then a series of small corridors, from which there were even smaller, more private pools yet. Sand-in-the-Mists wasn't a bathing hall so much as it was a bathing warren, warm and cluttered with giggling, naked elflings.

Tai'vi pulled them into a room that was not a room at all, that was a series of steps leading to a pool built onto a sort of cliff, out in the sunshine. It was small and hot, and there were only three other elves here. 

Anka blinked at them. They blinked at him. Though he knew them vaguely (the small one was Dumayi Leaps-Freely, the very pretty one with the serious brows was Arrat Honors-the-Roots, and the long-legged one was Dai'nat Flies-the-Green), and he supposed they knew vaguely of him, they all regarded him for a moment with perfect surprise.

He did the same to them. Dumayi was sitting on Dai'nat's lap, with a hand on Dai'nat's cock. Arrat was -- there was no word for it. Arrat had an oblong phallus of pearl, which he was...was _using_. 

Anka should not have been shocked. It was little more than what Anka himself had done all his life. Sex. Fucking. But -- but to do it with other young elves, with ones like _them_ , to do it as a mere pastime or form of enjoyment--

"Close your mouths," Tai'vi said wryly. "And put your toys away, my darlings, or you shall frighten off our Anka-Eleyi. Don't worry, Anka-Eleyi. We do not expect anything of you."

"Unless you want to give it," said Dumayi, who was lovely as a sunbeam and whose D'lani was so perfect Anka was nearly envious. He smiled, and Anka -- Anka almost _did_ want to give it. 

Tai'vi prodded him down the steps into the pool, as Arrat put aside his phallus and Dumayi climbed off of Dai'nat. The water was lovely and hot, made hotter by the noonday island sun. Beyond the edge of the pool, beneath the cliff, the blue sea sparkled. Anka let the water close over him. It submerged him almost totally, to the neck. But it was so clear he could still see every inch of his own skinny, pale body.

He clutched himself, self-conscious.

Tai'vi carefully tugged him to one of the ledges at the edge of the pool, so he could sit. 

For a moment, there was silence as Anka avoided looking at anyone. He should not have come. He was not like them. He was half human and Monrovian-pale, and spoke ugly D'lani. He had never gaily taken pleasure the way they obviously did. How could he? He had no reason to. He saw nothing pleasant in himself, or for that matter in being touched by others. He knew what it was to feel pleasure. But, for him, it had only ever come hand in hand with pain, and since coming to D'laniara he'd supposed he would simply have to swear off of both.

He was relieved at that, in a way. Yes, it meant he would have no _avva_ , no beloved to wait for him outside, as surely all these beautiful creatures did. But that was fine. His children -- his three children who were here with him -- they would be enough.

Still. Now he felt keenly how odd he was, compared to other elves. 

What could he even have to say to these four? How could he possibly make friends with real elves?

Someone cleared their throat.

It was Arrat. His hair was a shade paler than the others, his skin like the gleaming near-black of the sea at night. His eyes were a clear, bright blue, very large, and terribly pretty. Now that Anka was looking at him, he almost didn't want to look away. He wanted just to take Arrat in. 

Arrat, a real dryad.

"Shall we tell stories, then?" Arrat said. "I think it is the hour of stories."

Anka was surprised to find all the other elves chiming their assent.

"Good," Arrat said. "I will begin."


	2. Arrat and the Vyaghra

**The Tale of Arrat and the Vyaghra**

Arrat's relli had been abandoned by his sire, who had gone mad following the Monrovian conquest. So Arrat and his clutchmate were born to a low, miserable little elfling, straining all alone in a hovel, in the city of Praknita.

And there they were raised. A dirt clutch. Filthy, poor, and often starving. Relying upon the kindness of other clutches. Some days, they did not have even a single lentil to eat. 

Now, one day, when the clutch was only barely into their majority, their relli fell ill. Arrat's clutchmate, Amayi, was their relli's favorite, being much more beautiful and graceful than Arrat, and their relli begged to be tended to by Amayi, not Arrat. So it fell to Arrat to go begging for their supper, while Amayi stayed and bathed their relli's head with dirty well-water.

"Perhaps you won't have to beg," Amayi said, looking worried for Arrat. "Perhaps we can sell our sire's ring."

It was a fine golden ring, and the last thing they had of him. Amayi usually wore it on a chain around his neck, for their relli had given it to Amayi. But now Amayi slipped the chain off and clasped it around Arrat's throat.

Arrat blinked, shocked. He had not ever thought Amayi might give him the one thing their family found valuable.

"I cannot sell it," he said. "It is yours."

" _Ours_ ," insisted Amayi-the-favored.

"Even so," Arrat said.

So that evening he begged from door to door. Praknita had many districts, and Arrat begged from the ragged district to the pleasure district. Begged at every house he saw. At some, he received a single rudin, but at most, he was spat upon or driven away, for elves were considered very low-caste in Praknita. 

After three hours of begging -- and it was the monsoon season, did he mention that? It was in the middle of the monsoon season -- he came upon a faded, ancient district at the other end of the city.

Here there were a number of ancient Praknita palaces from the days of Prince Hajari. But their gates were rusted over, for they had fallen into disrepair. He wandered from gate to gate, door to door and found most houses padlocked, and those that were not were plainly empty. He was sodden wet and cold and miserable, and though he had only twelve rudins, which was scarcely enough for their supper and to buy their relli medicine, he resolved to turn back for home.

But when he tried to head back to the main road, he found it doubled onto a street he had not seen before. At the end of the street there was a shining, old-fashioned house, with a huge, gleaming black door and lights in the windows.

Shivering and filthy, he dared to knock at the door.

It swung open. Arrat waited to be called in, but no call came. Hesitantly, he stepped onto the chess-tiled black and white floor, though his green-tipped bare feet left muddy puddles on it.

"Ah," came a voice. "You are here to put yourself forward."

It was a tall, tall man. His skin was brown, his eyes pale gold, his hair a vivid red. He stood at the top of a great stair, peering down at Arrat.

Arrat hastened to correct him, for he was only a beggar, but the man said, "Now, now. You lose nothing, you know! The winner -- well. He will marry the winner, won't he? He always marries the winners. And the losers will receive a sack of whatever they need. Wouldn't you like a sack of whatever you need?"

To tell the truth, it was _marry_ that did it for Arrat. In the elven district, most elves wanted to marry elves of fine clutchlines. Arrat's friends, the Guards-the-Branches, were a respectable, honorable clutchline, with a few odd, unsuitable elves in their line, yes, but still no real scandal to their name. 

But Arrat and Amayi, though they were fair enough to look upon, though they were not strange or worse, barren, were only of the Honors-the-Roots. A lazy clutch, a bad clutch. A clutch touched by _oreyo_ , abandonment, the worst elven sin. And by the sickness of their relli, which other elves whispered was not sickness but mostly just laziness, cruelty, and drunkenness.

Arrat did not expect to marry. During their first heat, he and Amayi had attracted no suitors. Perhaps this was because they were so young, or perhaps it was because the other elves did not wish to force themselves on a household that had no sire to protect it. But more likely it was because Honors-the-Roots were thought to be a bad clutch. Arrat and Amayi had had to hold each other, pet each other, to get through it.

So now he stepped forward and climbed the stair to the tall man.

The tall man smiled when Arrat stood before him. Arrat was then a very young, very small elf. Shivering and wet, he likely appeared smaller still. The tall man put a hand on his chest and peeled back his filthy vest, and Arrat was entranced by the long, frightening fingers, the nails as sharp as a naiad's. The tall man stripped his chest bare and then proceeded to the band of his trousers, and Arrat was caught by the golden gaze.

Like a cat's. Pinning him in place.

"Very good," murmured the man, when he had Arrat quite naked. His nail traced Arrat's pointed, green-tipped ears. Then migrated down to softly outline Arrat's little cock and the mound of his green-blushed dryad cunt. 

"This will please him," the man said softly. "You are suitable for the Vyaghra. Come."

He took Arrat's hand and led the naked elf boy through the chessboard halls. Outside, the rain pounded fearfully and winds lashed the walls. Candlelight flickered orange shadows over wide, dark doorways, somehow managing to illuminate nothing within. 

They came to a room with a great wooden desk, and behind the desk was the Vyaghra. 

Arrat knew this was him. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew it nevertheless. The Vyaghra was a giant, with bulging shoulders and massive thighs. His skin was golden, his eyes just as gold, and his black hair streaked with white. When he smiled, his teeth proved to be filed to points.

The desk looked like a dolls' toy before him. Arrat _felt_ like a dolls' toy before him.

"What can you show me?" demanded the Vyaghra, in a voice like a growl. 

Arrat was pushed forwards, completely naked. His mouth was dry. For elves, the start of courting was a heat. Accepting another elf during heat, and showing yourself wholly to them. Arrat held his arms above his head and turned slowly, to show the Vyaghra every inch of him. His dark legs, his bare bottom. His little tits, cock, and his cunt.

Something in that cunt was slicking up. It was a want that had come upon him when he dared look upon the huge Vyaghra. Arrat's little mouth hung open, as if he were suddenly hungry for something. Because he was.

And he realized that two men, identical to the Vyaghra's manservant, with red hair and golden eyes, had fallen into line on either side of him. They mimicked his movements, lifting their arms and turning slowly. It was like being in a strange dance. Arrat took in a breath, and bent over. They bent over. He spread his legs so the Vyaghra could see his cunt and arshole better. The men spread their legs.

He straightened, turned again to face the great lord, and finished by cupping his tits.

The two men closed upon him.

He did not even have time to squeak, before two sets of brown hands were massaging his tits, playing with the young flesh and squeezing the nipples. It didn't precisely feel good, just shocking. Arrat found himself squirming and mewling, brain whiting out in panic. He tried to protest, but it was like words had been chased from his brain.

The Vyaghra's smile widened.

"Good!" he demanded. "More!"

One of the men slid behind Arrat and pinned back his hands. The other let a hand migrate down, to Arrat's virgin cunt.

He pressed a finger right in, and Arrat gave a shriek.

It hurt. It was so, so uncomfortable. Arrat wriggled now in the manservant's grasp, but this did nothing. Still that finger plumbed him, and discovered the lick of wetness beyond his folds. Arrat flushed all over, humiliated. 

He could feel his insides, really feel them, where the manservant was probing them. That hot, insistent digit was waking him to his little cunt-tunnel, the path to his womb. He still wriggled his hips and tried to get away, and it only made him feel it more. 

Eventually he stopped, defeated. They were too strong. And the Vyaghra seemed unmoved, and was just looking at the trail of wet dripping from Arrat's cunt with impassive golden eyes.

"More," he growled again.

Arrat whimpered, and was forced to his knees. The manservant who had been plumbing his cunt now drew back his robe, and revealed a large, hard brown cock. 

He touched the tip to Arrat's lips. What he wanted was clear.

Arrat did not want to suck it. But he was finding that his cunt, his treacherous cunt, took the contact like an electric current. The heady, animal smell, and the fright. The Vyaghra's assessing golden gaze. The Vyaghra's cock would likely be even bigger than this one, Arrat thought wildly, and, like a creature possessed, he opened his little mouth.

The big brown cock slid into it, filling his world with cock. He made small, senseless noises around it. It was heavy on his tongue, tasting salty and hot. His jaw stretched to accommodate it, and his eyes watered. It slid in until it hit the back of his throat, making him sputter and choke, and then it kept going.

He couldn't breathe. The manservant before him clutched his wet hair, the better to fuck into his mouth. The manservant behind him still held him in place, and now grabbed his tits again, squeezing them, rocking them in circles. Arrat's cunt dripped madly, as he moaned for air around the cock.

In-out, in-out it rocked out of his mouth, the hand on his head yanking his hair, the pain somehow making his cunt flutter like nothing ever had before. He was crying freely, snot dripping down his face, wishing he knew how to make it stop, but still wanting--

" _More_ ," growled the Vyaghra.

Arrat's head was forced forwards, the pain on his scalp and in his throat consuming him. His knees were kicked back, so that he fell onto his arms, his rear in the air. The manservant behind him circled his rear pucker with a claw-like nail, teasing the sensitive flesh.

Arrat moaned. His cunt felt like it was winking, desperate to be filled. 

Instead, something large and hard pressed against his arse. Arrat thrashed, but the clawed hands held his hips in place. The cock in his arse pressed in just as slowly as the one in his mouth had, making him _feel_ it. 

It felt so dirty. It felt like it didn't belong, like it was prying him open. He tried to take in as much breath as he could through his nose, as he adjusted to the filthiness of the sensation.

His cunt was drenched now. The girth in his back hole was doing that. Making him throb in his pussy, making him suck the prick in his mouth in earnest.

Hot, and long. Arrat's eyelashes fluttered. He wished he was not enjoying this, but only a small part of him wished that. He liked the big hot, tasty cock in his mouth. He liked the big hot, painful cock in his arsehole, his arsehole that didn't even want it. Not like his needy cunt did.

Fucked forwards, onto cock, and shoved back, until balls slapped his arse and his backside burned with the penetration. He was a mass of pain in his bottom, but it only made him scrabble a hand to his cunny, so _close_ to coming--

"More!" said the Vyaghra.

The cock in his rear pulled out, feeling like it was pulling him inside-out. He screamed around the cock in his mouth, but then he was just screaming, for he was lifted off of that. The two manservants picked him up like he weighed nothing and brought him to the desk. Arrat's back hit the fine wood with a thump. His hands were pinned above his head, his legs spread out. At some point, the two identical manservants had become four identical manservants.

The Vyaghra grinned down at his slick, glistening cunt. He stood. He was so large, he was all Arrat could see. His big cock prodded at Arrat's cunt. Arrat's own cock was standing straight up. It was about as large as the Vyaghra's smallest finger.

The Vyaghra let out a big booming laugh.

"Good," he rumbled. His huge, clawed hands raked their way gently down Arrat's little face. Arrat hiccuped, crying, but no longer fought. He felt as if he were about to be eaten.

"Good," the Vyaghra repeated. " _More_."

Like his manservants, he was slow pressing in. Stretching Arrat slow, so slow. Dirty wet noises emanated from Arrat's slippery cunt, which wanted this so badly. Arrat himself was mewling, quivering on the desk. He felt like his insides were being rearranged. His little cock twitched and came, just a sorry little spurt he hardly noticed around the shame of loving how painfully his cunt was filled.

So full. The Vyaghra had climbed on top of him, and his heavy body pressed Arrat down. Arrat could smell him, feel his big cock inside. Arrat moaned uselessly.

"Good, kitten," grunted the Vyaghra.

"M-more!" Arrat begged, finding the one word he could manage to understand. "More!"

The stretch hurt, but it felt so good, too. The Vyaghra's cock mapped new depths in him, forcing him to take more than he'd ever thought possible. Arrat's mouth was full of hungry spit, and he wished the Vyaghra could fuck him there, too, could fuck him everywhere.

"You are good," grunted the Vyaghra. "You will be mine. Will you be mine, kitten?"

And his big clawed hands closed on Arrat's throat, squeezing. The pain was exquisite. Arrat's cunt spasmed, coming on the big cock that was only half in him and yet already owned him completely. He opened his mouth to choke out his submission, his agreement--

There was a _clink_. 

The Vyaghra's claws had snapped the chain on which hung the ring Amayi had given him. A simple gold ring, once their sire's. It fell to the desk beside Arrat's head, and Arrat fixed upon it.

Suddenly, he felt not remotely submissive at all. He felt frightened, angry, and desperate to leave. He had his words now -- his real words.

"No," he choked out.

The Vyaghra gave a growl, and the hand on Arrat's throat tightened, tightened, _tightened_ \--

All was black.

-

When Arrat woke, he was fully-clothed and shivering in the morning light, drenched to the bone after a full night of rain. He was on a sort of podium, what was left of a once-fine palace, in the middle of what looked like a hunting park. The whole park had been left in disrepair. 

Arrat whimpered, frightened. He felt under his clothes, sure he had been fucked open, but he had no injury. Only the memory, vivid and mad in his mind. 

He turned over and saw something large and bright move away from him. It was white and black. His heart seized up with fright at the animal grace of it, at how familiar it was. He pulled himself up.

There was a sack on the podium next to him. Inside, there were enough lentils to feed a family for a year, a hundred rudins, and some medicine for his relli.

When he shakily let himself out of the ruined old hunting park, he came face-to-face with a street-sweeper. The old man looked at him with disapproval.

"What, another one sneaking into Hajari's old pavilion?" he said crossly. "What, was it a dare? You're lucky to make it out, you know. The tigers in there are quite wild. Every year, people go in and they don't come back."

He gestured at the wall behind him, all hung with missing notices. 

Young Praknita men and women, of all castes, all creeds, all races.

All of marriageable age.


	3. The Jade-Handled Walking Stick of Grandmother Ormsbee

Anka found that, quite without thinking, he had moved closer to Arrat. The beautiful elf was breathing hard, as if he were still reliving that day. Anka brought a hand up instinctively to pat his hair, to comfort him, but then realized what he was doing.

Arrat had not asked for his touch. He put his hand down, chastened.

He wanted to ask if the story was true. But he felt that it _was_ true, it was just that it was so fantastical that it also seemed untrue.

Arrat fingered the gold ring he wore around his neck.

"Amayi proved much like our sire, and later abandoned the family," he said. "But I have never regretted that he gave me this. Is that not funny? That my scapegrace, _oreyo_ -sinning clutchmate should have saved me without knowing it." 

"What a frightening spell you were under," twittered Dumayi. "Enjoying pain! Imagine!"

Anka squirmed, uncomfortable. Suddenly, he felt himself to not belong here again.

He was surprised when Dai'nat said, chastisingly, "You show your minor age, Dumayi."

"Well, of course," said Dumayi, letting his hands make ripples in the water as he smiled. "I'm only sixteen!"

Anka blinked. 

He was a baby, Dumayi Leaps-Freely. He must have only just had his first heat. Dai'nat inclined his head, as if to acknowledge that someone so young ought to be permitted to say whatever foolish thing he liked. Then he ran a hand through his long, brown-gold hair.

Dai'nat was the tallest of them, with the stretch marks and full breasts that suggested he'd borne a few clutches himself by now. He pushed off of his corner of the ledge to tread water in the center of the pool, then kicked back his pale brown legs to float on his back. Anka admired the long, graceful lines of him as he spoke.

"Now I will go," he said. "Arrat should not be the only one to make himself vulnerable before his friends, hmm? I'll meet courage with courage. Here is my tale."

-

**The Jade-Handled Walking Stick of Grandmother Ormsbee**

When Dai'nat was small, he became sick, so sick that he nearly died. 

This happened on a boat. The boat was taking him to Monrovia to be sold.

He was plucked from his clutch and thrown off the side, to feed the fish. Perhaps if he had been luckier, and this had happened a little later, his naiad cousins might have found him. But they had still been sleeping then, for the naiads are cursed to fall asleep, their city sinking beneath the sea, every few hundred years.

So Dai'nat had drifted, nearly drowning, until he had washed ashore in Ordania, near the great city of Qowa Xomabi.

It was there that Grandmother Ormsbee found him.

She was very old and very heavyset, with fine dark skin and large luminous green eyes. Her father had been Saint Rhett Ormsbee, who the Monrovians had canonized for his success in converting Ordanians to the belief that Monrovian men ought to be canonized, and her mother a Qowa Xomabi whore. Grandmother Ormsbee had been a whore too, a successful one, and like all successful ones she liked to collect apprentices.

So by the time he had his first heat, Dai'nat was whoring in the fine house of Grandmother Ormsbee.

He -- or _she_ , for the Ordanian language is strict as to the difference, giving everything a gender even when it doesn't need to, and anyway Grandmother saw no use in men and tied up Dai'nat's cock in a pretty golden cage -- was one of Grandmother's very favorite girls.

Grandmother bought her pretty green dresses, to reflect her pretty green-tipped ears and fingers, and an even finer green corset to prop up the lovely shelf of Dai'nat's sumptuous tits. She was strict with Dai'nat, not permitting her to ever turn down a man Grandmother Ormsbee deemed worth a lay, but she could be startlingly kind, too. She gave Dai'nat a pet turtle to keep her company in her room, and never permitted a man to seriously hurt her. Grandmother Orsmbee did not like seeing her girls hurt, and especially not her pretty little elf-girl, with the flushed-green elven pussy so like a jewel and the long golden-brown hair.

Grandmother Ormsbee crooned to Dai'nat through her first heat, while a prosperous Ordanian merchant fucked the eager, drooling little elf to bring the girl some relief. And then, when Dai'nat's belly swelled not long after, Grandmother Ormsbee knitted christening gowns for the children.

"My sweet, fertile Nattie," she cackled, as she did so, for that was what she called her darling, her long-legged little elf-daughter. "We will have to give your ripe little melon a rest, my love."

There were other elves in Qowa Xomabi, not so lucky as Dai'nat, who served much crueller humans. They had to whore even when their bellies swelled. From her window in Grandmother Ormsbee's great house, Dai'nat could see them calling out the joys of their cunts on the street, clutching their huge swollen bellies as they tried to entice sailors.

But Grandmother Ormsbee did not want that for her girl. Dai'nat was retired from hard use, and became an upper body girl, the girl that tended the brothel waiting room and bar. While men waited for their pick -- or rather, Grandmother Ormsbee's pick for them -- to come collect them, Dai'nat crawled from man to man offering sucks, or ample tit-jobs. One hand on her heavy belly, and in her heart a great deal of gratitude for her good grandmother Ormsbee, who permitted her sore, bred-up cunt to have a rest.

Dai'nat, it must be said, did not particularly like the act of fucking. Her cunt was too tight, impossibly so, and she was often left crying at the pain. And she hated the feeling of sticky cum inside her, running down her thighs, burbling out of the hurt gape of her hole.

But she never complained to Grandmother Ormsbee. For one thing, Grandmother was often kind to her, sending her dear girl men on the smaller side, who would hurt Dai'nat less. For another, Dai'nat did not like to be punished. Grandmother was kind, but she was a madam, too, and a madam knows to punish her girls when they begin to put on airs. Her little Nattie would get a few hard smacks when she so dared, smacks with Grandmother's heavy jade-handled walking stick right on the elf-whore's pussy. To get it jewel-green and luscious. 

An elf's pussy was supposed to be pale green, like their fingers and toes. But, if properly abused, it could swell up with bruising and green elven blood. Then it would get as bright and beautiful as a jungle emerald. 

But Natties hated to be smacked bright green, and lived in terror of it. No, better to smile when Grandmother was about. That was a whore's job, anyway. To smile.

And it was easy enough to smile, when her only job was to warm men's cocks for the other girls. Clean them up with her tongue. Grandmother had trained Dai'nat well, remarkably well, so that she knew to pull back each foreskin and lick up the slime there, and then press kisses to the head when she was done. So that she knew to rub the hard head on her lips while fluttering her eyelashes, as if she was desperate for the taste. The heavy, hanging human testicles, so unlike her own tied-up little marbles, would get similar attention, _loving_ attention. Dai'nat could suckle them hungrily, quite happily, moaning around the sensitive flesh so that the men cursed and praised her all once.

"Good girl, Nattie!" Grandmother Ormsbee would cackle, as she did her rounds of the waiting rooms, her jade-handled walking stick thwapping _thwap-thwap!_ on the wooden floor.

Nattie was good. Even if the nice heat of a cock in her mouth always made her pussy spasm, her little cock twitch sadly in its tight cage, she would never sneak a hand under her skirt.

"You're a lady, my Nattie, yes you are," Grandmother often told her kindly. "That's why you get dresses and treats and pets, my love--"

And Dai'nat, she liked being a lady. She liked being valued, and treated well by Grandmother. It eased the pain of knowing that her tuo -- her sire, her relli, and her five little clutchmates -- were likely to be dead. Or worse: in Monrovia.

When her first clutch was born, Grandmother hired the finest doctors in Qowa Xomabi to help her through it. Nattie did not hold the babies first. Grandmother did, with tears in her eyes. Nattie looked on fearfully, for though one half of the clutch was a tiny elfling with golden-brown hair, the other was a strong human boy, and Grandmother had no use for boys.

"Little Philippa," Grandmother Ormsbee cackled over the elfling baby. "And her brother, dear little Philip! My own great-grandson."

And she pressed a kiss to both, and Nattie was so, so relieved.

When Grandmother Ormsbee and the doctors deemed her ready to take cock properly again, Nattie resolved to do it well. For now she had something better than dresses and kittens. She had her babies, her cherished pair. Both of them. Grandmother Ormsbee would rock the elf while her Nattie would nurse the boy, and rock the boy while Nattie would nurse the elf. Grandmother would bounce the giggling children on her lap while Nattie took customers. 

Nattie in her big room with her mirror, her silk-hung bed, her slumbering pet turtle, and a hard cock in her cunt. Riding it and riding it, splitting herself on it like Grandmother Ormsbee had instructed, so fast and hard her pale brown face went green with elven blood and her big, nice tits jiggled out of their cups. Coaxing out more men's seed for her pussy, even though she hated it. Begging men sweetly, in her ladylike voice, to please cum inside her and breed her again. 

"I love your cock!" she'd reassure them, for ladies always reassured men, always thanked them for the treatment. 

And eventually they'd flip her over, get her skirts up above her hips, so they could paint bruises on her thighs with their fingers and drive in deeper. So she could feel their hard pricks reaching into her. Spreading wide her slit and going so deep, until she felt something break inside her and gush even though she didn't want it too.

Then she'd be less a lady. She'd gurgle and come herself, shamed at the filthy sounds she was making, at the hot, heady pleasure in her bruised-green cunt.

Grandmother was in the rocking chair just beyond the door, cooing to the babies.

"You ever need help, my Phillippa!" she cackled. "Or you, my Philip! You just say 'Roo-ree! Roo-ree! Help me, Grandmother Ormsbee!'"

And sometimes a man would go too far -- would ignore Nattie when she asked him not to twist her clit-bead or poke cruelly at her trapped little cock. Would want to hit her the way only Grandmother Ormsbee was allowed to, right on her sensitive, smarting pussy, just to hear her scream. 

Then Nattie, frightened, would cry out, "Roo-ree! Roo-ree! Help me, Grandmother Ormsbee!"

And the big, elderly woman would set Phillippa in her cradle in the next room, and Philip in his cradle next to Philippa's, and in she would come with her walking stick, to beat the man silly and drive him from the house.

Then Nattie, crying, bleeding from her bright green cunt, would be so _grateful_. And when the next man came, she would smile and bend over, reach back and pull open her cunt to show him its beautiful color, without complaint in her heart. 

Just loyalty and thankfulness, for Grandmother Ormsbee.

A great many years passed, and Grandmother Ormsbee grew a bit frailer. Nattie, she was fed well and treated as well as a whore could possibly expect, and so she grew rather tall for an elfling, tall enough to draw in more men. She had her second heat with Grandmother watching, knitting in the rocking chair, while the most important men in Qowa Xomabi lined up to fuck her Nattie. Nattie, the prettiest girl in the city.

"Don't cry, my Nattie," said the old woman placidly, as Nattie gasped and writhed in her bounds, ruining her makeup with tears of need. "You'll get all the cock you need to calm you down, my love."

"Th-thank you, Grandmother," Nattie whimpered, as the latest man finished in her, warming up her womb with all his nice, heavy cum; and the next man lined up. Pushed in. Nattie's back arched off the bed, her pussy slick and giving way so nicely. She made a guttural, happy sound at being filled up again so soon, just like she needed--

"Now, Nattie, you thank him too. You're a _lady_."

"Thank you, sir," rasped out Nattie, and meant it.

Grandmother gave her so much cock during her second heat that of course she fell pregnant again. Fat with a second clutch, her tits all swollen with milk. Grandmother Ormsbee held her hair and patted her through her morning sickness, and gave her plenty of breaks to go milk herself, to ease the tightness in her aching chest. Again, Nattie was permitted a rest from fucking, though this time Grandmother Ormsbee gave her an ivory rod to keep her pussy from clamping tight. Nattie was instructed to fuck herself with it for an hour a day, but Grandmother Ormsbee always made sure to put it in her kettle and warm it up, for elves like heat, and the burning-hot rod would hurt and feel marvelous all at once, leaving Nattie panting and moaning.

"That's it, dearie, my dear sweet Nattie," Grandmother would call out, from where she was playing with Philippa and Philip in the hall. "Accept it, my lovey. A lady never fights. She always accepts."

By the time Nattie's second clutch was born, Nattie's pretty cunt _wanted_ to be fucked and bruised and split open. Grandmother Ormsbee named the second clutch John and Johanna, and doted on them as she did Philip and Philippa. 

Of course, she doted on all her whores' children, but it was understood that her favorite great grandchildren were Nattie's, for Nattie was the little girl she'd found washed up on the beach, who was growing into such a good, pliable little lady. Nattie had a great many men all throughout Qowa Xomabi who paid her court, who asked for her specially, and her winsome smile, talented mout, and emerald-green cunt kept Grandmother Ormsbee's house quite prosperous, so that all the whores and all the children could have fine clothes, treats, and other goodies picked out for them by Grandmother.

Nattie was happy. She was scarcely ever beaten on her cunt now, not unless she asked for it, and her tasks were a joy to her. Her children were well-loved, fat, and good; and her suitors, casting a nervous eye at the old woman rocking in the hall, were respectful as they massaged her pretty tits and ran their hard cocks over her wet, inviting pussy.

Things could have been quite perfect. But for two wrinkles. The first was that, with that cunt well-trained enough to accept its painful neediness, Grandmother Ormsbee now directed Nattie to start training her arsehole. This embarrassed Nattie terribly. She did not think it appropriate for a lady such as herself to have to play with her rear hole each night, slipping in the greasy ivory phallus and feeling how wrong, how dirty it was to fuck herself back there. 

But a lady never fought. A lady accepted. Nattie accepted that this hole, too, was meant to take a cock. Though she sobbed at the humiliation, she never complained to Grandmother. She learned to grow accustomed to how her little elven cocklet would strain, leaky in its cage, when she fucked the ivory phallus in just right. She learned to bite back her unladylike grunts, to calm the rising need in her by frigging her pussy until she came the proper, girlish way.

"Good girl, Nattie," Grandmother Ormsbee would call from the hall. "Then we'll stretch out your pretty nipples, my sweet! And your little girlish cock-hole, lovie."

Nattie lived in dread of having even those holes stretched, made pliable and saggy and cock-fuckable. But despite the dread, her cocklet still twitched happily and her cunny still spasmed with delight. She had a proper whorish body now, Nattie did, and it did not dare fight the whims of Grandmother Ormsbee.

The other thing marring her perfect happiness was Qowa Xomabi itself. The sun-drenched Ordanian capitol, resplendent with murals and hanging gardens, was not ruled by Ordanians, of course. It was the purview of the Monrovian Royal Exploration Company, just like the rest of the world, and the REC policed all the whorehouses, and taxed them quite harshly. Whores were subject to inspection by REC doctors to ensure they were healthy, a state of affairs that quite annoyed Grandmother Ormsbee, and left her snappish and quick with her walking stick.

But never quick with Nattie. Elves are not susceptible to the same infections that plague men, and Nattie always passed her inspections easily. She was always declared healthy as anything, if left green-faced and sniffling, by the time the REC doctors finished groping her round brown bottom and prying their medical tools into her giving, well-trained holes. 

But for the other ladies in the house, well. There Grandmother Orsmbee often had to rely on the intervention of her brother, Governor Claud Ormsbee.

It says something about Qowa Xomabi, that there a son can become a Monrovian-appointed governor, while a daughter must remain a whore. Nattie often wondered about this, about if it bothered Grandmother Ormsbee. But Grandmother never let on if it did, always reassuring her girls that she was quite happy where she was; and while she was not precisely close to the Governor, neither did she ever say a word against him. She seemed content to let him be, governing all the city, while she reaped profits in her mural-painted great house, with all her little great-grandchildren running about to spoil, and her good girls working to keep the house afloat. All she ever asked from the Governor, really, was that he not let the REC bother them too much.

So time passed. Nattie became a very skilled whore, and a beautiful young lady to boot, always with the green blush of youth on her cheek, for elves age very slowly. Philippa, Philip, John, and Johanna continued to grow into beautiful, laughing, spoiled children. And Grandmother -- she grew even older still.

One morning, she simply did not wake. She lay stiff even when the maid knocked to bring her breakfast, and when the maid went to get Nattie and Nattie dared intrude on Grandmother's fine room in the back of the house, there was the old woman stone-dead, still clutching in one hand her jade-handled walking stick.

All of the girls grieved terribly. A message was sent to the Governor, her only family, but for many hours no one came. Nattie wrapped up Grandmother Ormsbee in a proper Ordanian burial shroud, and said the seven prayers of the Ordanian gods and the invocation of the Monrovian saints, as a lady should. She sat vigil with the body, while the other girls gathered up the little children and told them gently what had happened.

The house was closed up for the day. It was flying pale orange mourning banners when the Governor finally arrived, late into the night. He was an old man of medium-height, much paler and more Monrovian-looking than his sister, and he swept into the house and said, "Did you all stop working today? You will take any excuse not to ply your trade, won't you?"

The whores hastened to tell him that no, they had merely observed a day of mourning, in deference to Grandmother.

"That lazy old bitch?" sneered the Governor. "She never worked any of you hard enough, I always thought."

And then he swept up the stair and directed his men to take the body out to a wagon which would take it to the city burial ground.

Nattie watched this happen sadly.

"Please, sir," she dared to ask. "May we visit her, when she is interred?"

The Governor stared down at the full-breasted, pretty elf, in her simple but fine green dress, with the jade drops Grandmother Ormsbee had bought her in her pointed ears.

"How much did she charge for you?" he asked, ignoring Nattie's question.

Nattie caught his cold hazel eyes and looked away. Not simply because a lady should, but because there was something clinical and terrible in his gaze.

She named the number, quite a high one, which Grandmother Ormsbee had deemed more or less accounted for her worth.

The Governor smiled. 

"Good," he said silkily. "Very good. Burial is so expensive, but if we sell you once or twice tonight, we shall more than cover it."

Nattie sputtered.

"Sir, she has only just died! I cannot work tonight -- I must observe mourning--"

The Governor grabbed her roughly by the chin, and forced her back against the wall. His touch was cold and firm.

"You are not a _lady_ , to observe anything. You're my sister's spoiled little elf bitch, and you will work as much as I need you to, to make up the costs of running this place. She's gone and died and left me with all these whore mouths to feed, and I intend to see a profit out of it. So we will open the doors tonight and invite in the men, and I will hear not a word more out of _you_."

Nattie blinked, tears in her eyes. But ladies did not fight. Ladies gracefully accepted.

After this, life became harsh and painful indeed. The Governor did not care to offer his whores dresses, treats, or pets, and sold half of what they had to line his pockets. He did not pick out the kind men, the gentle men, the men who obeyed rules, but opened the doors to even the ones who pulled Nattie's hair and brutally beat her for their enjoyment. The Governor was quicker with punishments, too, than Grandmother had been, and installed three men to run the house with long, swishy willow whips, which beat the whores awake when they dared to sleep in, and beat the whores quite senseless when they were not smiling as they should.

His men liked Nattie, in particular, liked her long pale brown legs and her round bottom, her bright and lovely cunt and her well-trained arsehole. 

Some days, she had to take all three of them at once.

It all might have been bearable if only the cruelty had not spilled over to the children. The Governor saw little value in them, especially the boys, and so he informed Nattie that all four of hers would be sold as soon as he could find a valuable price for them.

Nattie cried, pleaded, and begged. Never mind how this invited punishment, how it meant she was tied up in the garden and beaten and beaten. She rebelled, refusing men in a most unladylike fashion, and getting the other girls to do the same. The Governor's three overseers were no match for a house of women in rebellion, and they called for their master to come and quell the situation.

When he arrived, the girls had locked themselves in the kitchen with the children. The Governor conferred quietly with his men, and then, because he was a wily sort, he said through the door, "I want the elf."

Nattie was pleased by how swiftly and stridently her fellow whores refused.

But then the Governor said, "If I do not have the elf, I will have the old bitch dug up. I will charge her posthumously with fraud, and have her body displayed in the public square to be eaten by crows."

Nattie felt her eyes fill with tears at the thought of this. Grandmother Ormsbee had been strict with her, but kind too. Had doted on the children, and doted too on her Nattie. To think of her body so defiled was horrifying. Nattie could not bear for that to happen.

Despite the protests of her fellow whores, she opened the door to the kitchen and stepped out.

The three overseers were groaning in the hall, quite bruised from where some of the whores had given them a wallop. But the Governor was standing straight and pleased in his mauve silk suit, looking down at the little elf with an expression of near-satisfaction.

"I can almost admire your spine," he purred. "But I won't have disobedience in my house. You will be made an example of, my little bitch."

He dragged Nattie up the stair to the finest room, Grandmother's old room, which he always used when _he_ sampled the girls. There he threw the elf on the bed. He took up a whip -- he always kept a whip -- and beat her viciously, shredding her green gown and making pain bloom on her legs and arms as she cowered, frightened. 

"None of that!" he snarled, when he saw her trying to scramble away.

He grabbed her by the hair, and tossed her to the ground. Flipped up her ruined skirts to bare her holes. As he undid his silken suit trousers, he grunted out, "When I'm done with you, I'll take your little elves, too. How old is that Philippa? Seven? Old enough to whore, I'll bet. I'll bet my sister was selling _you_ by that age--"

Nattie began to cry so hard she could scarcely breathe. Grandmother had never sold her so young. Grandmother had promised -- _promised_ \-- none of her children would be sold so young, either. Nattie was so horrified by the proposal that she scarcely noticed what the Governor was doing until he pushed into her arse. 

He did it without preparation. The rough fuck shook her whole body, making her tits scrape against the floorboards. It hurt so bad she could barely think.

She closed her eyes, squeezing out tears, as the Governor assaulted her. Nattie tried to scramble away, but this only made the Governor yank back her head by her hair. She blinked through her sobs as he continued to fuck her brutally. 

Her arse was being split open. She did not feel like a lady. She felt broken. She tried to catch a breath amid her pain and misery.

Her gaze fell upon the jade-handled walking stick, propped up against the far wall.

Someone must have taken it from Grandmother's body, when the old woman had been carried out of the house. Nattie fixated on it, wondering, and as she was raped her weary, mourning mind prompted her to say those old, familiar words.

"Roo-ree! Roo-ree! Help me, Grandmother Ormsbee!" the elf choked out, through her tears.

The stick pushed itself off the wall.

The Governor did not notice. But Nattie did. Nattie watched as the stick began to hover, and then as it glided over her head. There was a solid _thwack_ , and then another. Then the painful cock in her arse pulled out, and she was left on her hands and knees, breathing hard. Behind her, there were several more _thwack-thwack-thwacks!_

She turned over, fearful, to see the walking-stick attacking the Governor of its own volition. The man was so surprised he seemed unable to scream, only cowering and making sad little sounds of surprise. The stick never abated, hitting him fiercely, over and over, driving him back.

It drove him to the window, and then, with a crash, he fell through. The walking stick glided out after him. Nattie, horrified, stumbled up and ran over, to see the Governor's body splayed out in the street. The walking stick, meanwhile, was attacking his carriage driver and bodyguard and valet, dancing and floating, darting out of reach and then viciously hitting every man in the Governor's employ.

By the time Nattie had gathered up enough thought to run downstairs, there were three groaning men around the dead governor, and the walking stick had floated indoors to deal with the overseers. The street whores -- elves and women alike -- were standing open-mouthed, staring at the brothel. Nattie whirled around and ran to the hall before the kitchen, where she found the walking stick beating the last of the overseers bloody.

When it was done, it fell to the floor with a clatter. The jade handle broke off, and inside it was hollow. With shaking fingers, Nattie reached for the piece of paper inside the walking stick.

_The Last Will and Testament of Claudia Orsmbee_

_Being of sound mind and body, I hereby declare that I leave all my property and effects, including that part and parcel of land which constitutes the Ormsbee brothel, and all the fixtures and buildings thereupon, to my dear little elf-daughter, my Nattie, and to my grandchildren: Philippa, Philip, John, and Johanna._

_To my brother Claud I leave my jade-handled walking stick, and may it give the son of a bitch his due._

-

Nattie was of course questioned by the REC, following the deaths of the Governor and all his men. But the whores on the street were quick to say she'd had nothing to do with it, and the whores in the house said the same. 

Nattie, she only said, with dignity, "How could I do such a thing? I am a lady. I do not fight, good sirs. I accept whatever comes to me."

What came, after that, were several years of prosperity and peace. The brothel flourished, and Nattie, she invited in several new girls from the streets, who needed a place to rest while they carried their clutches. The only wrinkle was the occasional harassment by the REC, who were forever demanding bribes and such. 

But in due time Nattie gave the brothel over to the other girls, and gave up being a whore. For she, her children, and _all_ her fellow elves were invited to return to D'laniara, the freed elf-nation that had expelled the REC. 

In D'laniara, life was said to be free of pain or degradation.

Still, just in case, Nattie took with her the jade-handled walking stick of Grandmother Ormsbee.


	4. The Curious Secret of Prince Rohit Nakhul

After Dai'nat was done, he floated for a bit, content, and let the rest of them reflect.

"I wish I had a jade-handled walking stick," Dumayi said wistfully, braiding his long hair, now darkly damp from several diving trips to the bottom of the pool. "I would give Councillor Yennit such a _thwack_ \--"

"You cannot thwack a fellow elf!" Arrat cried, horrified. "Imagine!"

He waved his hands worriedly just beneath the water, making perfect, sun-dappled rings dance out.

"I've known one or two I'd like to thwack," Tai'vi replied. He sent a conspiratorial glance to Anka, who was now a bit more relaxed as he tried to think through Dai'nat's tale. "And, really, as if Prince Kouvi doesn't threaten to have it out with that awful Yennit all the time--"

"That is different," said Arrat. "Prince Kouvi is so handsome and dashing. He is only trying to defend our people's honor when he does that, if you think about it--"

"So he is allowed to thwack people and I'm not?" complained Dumayi. "What if I'm defending _my_ honor?"

"I'm glad the stick defended Dai'nat's," Anka said quietly.

He, like Dumayi, felt a wistful longing at the tale. He would have liked to have had a jade-handled walking stick as well. And he did credit the stick -- not Grandmother Ormsbee. He felt a sort of creeping fright of _her_.

Maybe he had no right to feel that. Dai'nat clearly loved her. And she seemed much, much kinder than the madam he had known.

Anka had never been told he was anything so valuable as a lady.

With a splash, Dai'nat righted himself so he was standing in the crystal-blue of the pool. He turned to look at Anka, his movements graceful, as if he had quite forgotten Anka was there and only just now remembered thanks to Anka having spoken.

"Would you like to go next, Anka-Ele--"

Anka shrank back. No. No, no, no. He could not follow that. He could not--

"I'll go next!" Tai'vi said loudly.

Anka felt impossibly thankful for this. His heart, which had been thudding too fast in his chest, began to calm. He fixed his gaze gratefully on Tai'vi as the plump, pretty elf with the heart-shaped mouth gave a sigh and patted his heavy belly.

"I am quite running out of tales, for I'm so boring. Even when I could adventure, I prefer to stay home with Yann," Tai'vi said. "But I have one or two stories left for you. I think I shall tell you about--"

-

**The Curious Secret of Prince Rohit Nakhul**

After Tai'vi wedded his Yann, they went with the circus to Monrovia.

Also to a great many other places. Isseya and Ordania and Tekku-Lozelle. Balinor and the island of Filkke. Really, thanks to the REC rail lines that now criss-crossed the world, the circus could cover half a hemisphere in just the summer season.

But this story takes place in the three or so weeks they spent in Monrovia.

Such a strange place! Biting, nippy winds wrack the whole nation, or what Tai'vi saw of it. And the Monrovians seemed to have crammed the place with boxy brick buildings of all varieties, smoke-belching factories, and here or there a little park where the trees were sad and small and hobbled, and existed only to be ignored by perambulating Monrovian ladies in fat silk dresses and striding Monrovian lords in silly top hats. These lords and ladies were stiff and formal with each other, downright cruel to visitors from other places, and cruelest of all to the poor Monrovians, who in turn liked to kick their dogs, hit their children, and curse inhumans of all kinds.

So this was Monrovia, the hand that guided the world! 

Tai'vi was not impressed with it.

Perhaps it was for the best that he would only be working three weeks there. Yann's family circus act needed Tai'vi to be the flyer in the trapeze show, and to tumble on the high-line. Normally Yann's brother Hil'ki did it, but Hil'ki had recently retired, so it fell to Tai'vi to star in two shows a day: the matinee and the evening show.

And to perform after hours, as well, in the private showings booked by Monrovian lords. Monrovians, you see, have had an appetite for elves since they first discovered elves existed. 

Yann told Tai'vi firmly that Tai'vi was not expected to do more than show his form, not unless he wanted to do more. Yann was -- and is -- a good _avva_ , very worthy to be Tai'vi's beloved, and he has never forced Tai'vi to do anything Tai'vi does not wish to.

"Will _you_ be going to the private shows?" Tai'vi asked.

Well, if you know Monrovian lords, or Yann, this question might make you laugh. The lords are the wealthiest and most Monrovian of Monrovians, and the smaller and weaker an elf is, the more they want to get their hands on that elf. They like to dominate, the Monrovian lords do. But nothing about Yann suggested easy domination. Yann was -- and is -- a strapping, full-grown elf, with wide shoulders, powerful thighs, and a broad, handsome face.

"I normally do three or four myself, for some Monrovians like to think they're strong enough to subdue me," Yann admitted (there! Now you have learned that what Tai'vi just told you about Monrovian lords isn't necessarily true. See, you shouldn't believe everything you hear). "But I will cancel most of my private sessions, if you like. We are married now. I will not sell myself if you do not want me to."

Tai'vi did not want him to, and so this was fine, but Tai'vi's mind caught on a single word.

"Most?" he echoed to Yann. "You will cancel _most_?"

Yann's handsome face grew uncertain. He looked down at his strong hands, intertwined with Tai'vi's.

"There is one I am promised to," he said, "My word given, well and truly. And I cannot go back on a promise, for to do so, to fail in a promise or a duty, is to court _oreyo_ , abandonment, which you know is the greatest elven sin."

This is the sort of thing an elf cannot argue with. But Tai'vi wanted to argue. He was very deeply in love with his Yann, having picked Yann for an _avva_ at his very first heat. Yann was kind, thoughtful, strong, and handsome. Yann was simply perfect, and Tai'vi did not want to share him.

Yann clearly saw the mutiny written on his little spouse's face.

"It was a promise made long ago, long before I met you," he rushed to say. "And I regret making it! I do! Yorrat and I, we were a young clutch then, only forty or so. Our younger brothers, they were but children. Yorrat and I thought only of making money to support them, for our relli and sire were dead, and so we agreed to take part in the circus.

"That was all we agreed to. But then -- then it became clear that the Monrovians, they would pay for private shows. Very well. So we did private shows. And then we met the prince."

"The _prince_?" Tai'vi breathed out. 

Now he knew Yann was hiding something.

Monrovia had only recently gained a prince, fat little prince Edward, who was an infant and whose chubby, swaddled form was printed on the newer variety of five-pound note. Tai'vi did not think that, back when Yann had been a mere elfling, Monrovia had had a prince at all.

"That is what he calls himself," Yann said, stiff now. "Prince Rohit Nakhul. He is an exile who lives in a great house on the outskirts of the Monrovian capital. We met him while we were touring a district called Summerstoke, very green and pretty, for he has business interests there. He approached me and Yorrat, and it was decided I should go with him and Yorrat stay to tend our brothers. After that first night, Prince Rohit was so pleased with my services that he proposed a deal of sorts. In exchange for a generous sum, I would always visit him faithfully on the very last night I am in Monrovia. I have always kept the appointment, and he has always paid me promptly."

Tai'vi frowned at this.

Not _every_ promise was so sacred that to break it meant _oreyo_ , but Yann was right that an agreement of long-standing, which had been upheld consistently by both sides, could not be broken carelessly.

Still, he did not like to think of Yann being touched by this Prince Rohit. Tai'vi was not especially opposed to humans touching _him_ , for back in Praknita he'd certainly sucked off a merchant or two when his clutchline needed food put on the table. But he did not want any greedy, grasping humans touching his Yann. He ran a hand over Yann's stubble-rough chin, and Yann leaned into it, gazing at Tai'vi as though to ask for forgiveness.

This was his Yann, who had held him during all his heats, driven into Tai'vi and filled him up until Tai'vi could think of nothing but Yann. His Yann who had taught him what it was to come with a tongue lapping at his cunt, and how to like the dirty thrill of his arsehole licked, too. His strong, faithful husband, who never looked at another elf, and who had pledged to give young, wild, plump little Tai'vi all the clutches he could ever desire.

Tai'vi forgave him. 

Still, he said firmly, "You will do no private shows but that one. And for that one? I will go with you."

Yann looked a bit troubled by this. But he did not protest, for though he was an elf of some years, and Tai'vi a mere stripling of twenty, Yann was a gentle soul, who abided by the preferences of his little spouse in all but the most important things.

-

At the appointed time, the night before they left Monrovia, Yann and Tai'vi took a hansom cab to the manor of Prince Rohit Nakhul.

They did not call the cab. It was waiting for Yann after their final show in the Monrovian capital, and Yann did not seem surprised to be hailed by the driver. From this, Tai'vi deduced that this was simply the way Prince Rohit always did it. He tried not to show his apprehension as Yann helped him into the cab.

Yann was quiet all the way to the manor. He watched Tai'vi almost thoughtfully.

"I would not let you do this if I thought Prince Rohit would hurt you," he told his young bride. "Remember that. I do not believe we have any reason to fear him."

"Fear him!" said Tai'vi, eyebrows climbing. He was almost offended. Did Yann think him cowardly, simply because he was young, decades shy of full maturity? "Yann Tends-Leaves! What talk! I do not fear anything!"

Yann smiled, his blue eyes crinkling. He pulled Tai'vi close and pressed kisses to the sensitive green tips of his spouse's ears, making Tai'vi squirm and go a bit wet.

"I know, love. But I do," Yann said. "And so remember, no matter what you see, that I do not in fact fear Prince Rohit."

This is a curious thing to have one's spouse say, and Tai'vi was quite prepared to interrogate Yann on it, only now they were clattering through the heavy iron gate to the manor. Moments later, the hansom cab came to a stop, and then they were stepping out. It was a grey, rain-drizzled day, and the prince's manor was a grey, imposing building, surrounded by grey box hedges and with a grey weathervane creaking on the roof. 

A servant, a tall, well-dressed Snelling with black-shaded glasses and a black-tailed coat, let them into the manor. They were ushered into a black-papered parlor, where a man sat calmly waiting for them.

Such a strange man! He was of middle height, and very slender. He wore a bandage wrapped around his head, from the crown to the chin, covering his hair and all of his face. His hands were bandaged as well, bandaged all the way up past his cuffs, and his feet in their fine velvet house slippers were bandaged in just the same way. He wore the same black glasses as the Snelling, and Tai'vi could not quite blame him, for though it was grey outside, the manor was oddly bright, as if its skinny windows were collecting and refracting too much light.

"Yann," the man said, in perfect D'lani, better D'lani than even Tai'vi spoke. "How nice. And you brought a guest. I shall make sure a place is set for him, for supper."

And he gave his bandaged hand to Tai'vi, who, blinking, shook it.

What passed was the oddest supper Tai'vi had ever endured. Prince Rohit was not impolite, far from it. He was gracious and kind, and asked after Yann's siblings. He expressed delight at the news that Tai'vi was Yann's bride, and toasted to the health of their future clutches. Then he kept up amusing talk of his own travels in Balinor and Isseya through several courses of fine greens, greens as light and delicious as any that might be served in D'laniaa. Prince Rohit was a fine host, solicitous of their comfort throughout, always ensuring that his Snelling servants kept his guests' glasses well-filled with rare D'lani coconut gin.

"You were not born in D'laniaa?" he asked Tai'vi. A bit plaintively, Tai'vi thought.

"No, sir," Tai'vi replied politely. "My family fled before I was born. I was born in Praknita, sir."

Tai'vi was astonished to see a shudder run through Prince Rohit, as if hearing of that city offended him. Tai'vi felt uneasy at that. He wished he could see the prince's face, and judge his expression. 

Yann's hand found his, beneath the table. He gave Tai'vi's hand a supportive squeeze, and Tai'vi felt his heartbeat calm a bit.

After supper, Prince Rohit led Tai'vi through the halls of his manor, pointing out pictures of his sister ("My dear Sera, dead some years, we buried her at Summerstoke") and his beloved niece ("my Geraldine, who does not like the city"). Were it not for the fact that he could not see his host, and were it not for the occasional strange flash of light which seemed to glance out from some window or corner, blinding Tai'vi and making him blink furiously, this would have been perfectly pleasant.

But this, too, came to an end. For soon they came to a large room at the center of the Manor, with a roaring fire in the grate and a massive four-poster bed all piled with black velvet quilts.

Yann had until now stayed firmly by his Tai'vi's side, seeming watchful if a bit bored, as if he had nodded appreciatively at this sister or that niece many times before. But now he straightened up.

"May I show Tai'vi to another room, Prince Rohit?" he asked suddenly. "I regret I did not warn you he was coming, but he need not take part, surely--"

"I need not _not_ take part," Tai'vi said stubbornly, for he had resolved that if Yann was doing this, well, then, so was he. 

Prince Rohit inclined his head, though it was impossible to guess what this meant.

"I leave it up to little Tai'vi Watches-the-Sky," he said calmly. "If he likes, he shall have his own room for the night, across the hall. But I will not turn away a chance to make love to two elves. It is so rare, dear Yann, that I even have the pleasure of one in my bed."

He spoke of _elves_ with such intent, near-mournful focus that it made Tai'vi blink. For a moment, he was afraid. He could manage the covetous, hungry attentions of most men, for those were a fact of life. But he could not understand whatever seemed to possess the bizarre Prince Rohit. It was not mere carnal longing. The prince now came forward and softly touched a bandaged finger to Yann, _his_ Yann, running his hands across one broad shoulder like a lover.

"I will stay," Tai'vi said, and grabbed Yann's other side almost possessively. 

Yann blinked down at him as if to ask him if he was sure, but Prince Rohit only sighed. The bandages around his mouth quirked as if he were smiling beneath them.

"Very good," said the prince. "You will sit with me here on the settee before the fire, then, where we will be warmest. Yann, please--"

And now he gestured to the rich, thick black carpet between the settee and the fire.

It was there that Yann disrobed, watched by the blank mummy that was the prince, and by Tai'vi, whose hands were clenched tight on his thighs for some reason. He had seen Yann naked many times before, of course, but there was something more to this. 

Yann peeled off the many layers of woolens they all wore here in Monrovia slowly, carefully. Baring his big, golden-brown chest. His firm, muscular thighs. His cunt, tight and tinted with a flush of green, like Tai'vi's; and his thick, wonderful cock, in its bed of golden hair. Tai'vi shifted, both aroused and unsettled.

Prince Rohit was shifting as well. The prince's bandaged hands played the band of his velvet trousers, and then he took out--

It was a cock. It must have been. But it, too, was bandaged. Tai'vi stared, astonished.

With an apologetic look at his spouse, Yann straddled the prince at that point, blocking the bandaged length from view. He leaned in and whispered something to the prince, and Rohit nodded.

"Will you pleasure your husband, while I take my pleasure from him, little one?" the prince murmured, almost gently. "Will you do that for your Yann?"

"Of course!" Tai'vi cried roundly, almost without thinking. He felt such a rush of relief that it would be Yann he was touching. He did not want to touch the prince, did not want to lay his hands on whatever was wrong with him. He thought, for one terrified instant, that perhaps the prince had no skin. Or a terrible disease of some kind.

But then he felt horrible, for _Yann_ would still have to touch Rohit. 

The settee was a long, black velvet affair, one of the sumptuous sorts the Monrovians love to pile in every corner of their great houses. With some rearranging, Yann, the prince, and Tai'vi all fit on it. Yann straddling the prince, who sat lengthwise. Tai'vi behind Yann, spooning his larger husband. This meant Tai'vi did not have to so much as look at the unsettling Rohit, which was good.

Still, he could not work up any pleasure in himself. Even running his fingers over Yann's broad back, pressing kisses to the brown skin, did nothing for him. For Yann was leaning forward and obediently kissing the prince.

Kissing -- what? _What_? What sores covered those lips, what hideous flesh was hidden by the bandages? Not seeing the prince made Tai'vi fearful in a way seeing and knowing might not have. His heart thudded horribly in his chest and he blinked back tears as he tried to massage Yann's back.

Yann had one hand on the prince's chin. But the other he snuck back to offer to Tai'vi, as if he understood the horrible uncertainty that wracked his chosen relli. Tai'vi clung to that hand. Took in several shuddering breaths. 

Yann was not afraid. Yann knew something he did not. Yann was not afraid.

So Tai'vi gathered up his own courage. 

As Yann and the prince kissed almost sweetly, Tai'vi reached around. Yann's cock was soft in its bed of gold, a long, thick brown pole, blushed with green at the head. Tai'vi let his little hand stroke it to hardness, attending to it as a spouse should. All along the long shaft, all the way to the blunt, powerful cockhead, which had given him pleasure so many times. He lavished special attention on the folds of skin just below that head, sensitive as they were. This made Yann keen into the prince's mouth, and Tai'vi felt emboldened.

His Yann. His. Tai'vi let go of his hand so he could sneak down from the other side and fondle Yann's heavy ballsack. His own mouth was wet with spit, as he thought of how nice it was to suck wetly at that sack, how he could get Yann to groan--

Yann gave a groan of impossible need. Tai'vi could not see what he was doing with the prince now, but he supposed it didn't matter. Yann did not want the prince. He wanted _him_ , Tai'vi. Which was as it should be.

As one hand kept stroking Yann's cock, the hand on Yann's sack migrated further south. Tai'vi explored the folds of his husband's cunt, so like his own. Yann was getting wet here. Tai'vi was wet, too. He breathed out hard as he played Yann's privates, both of them, stroking and stroking in tandem. Yann rocked his hips in the rhythm Tai'vi set, moaning persistently now.

Into the prince's mouth. His own big hands seemed to be stroking the bandaged length, so that the prince hardened along with him. Tai'vi was a bit disturbed still, but he determined not to think of this. He would make Yann come. That was what he would do. He needed Yann spurting in his hands, spilling across Tai'vi's fingers.

As he stroked his husband, wrapped himself up in the smell of Yann's back and the silk-soft feel of Yann's skin beneath his hands, his own cunt clenched. It felt so empty. Tai'vi leaned against his husband's back and breathed out hard, only wanting to be filled. 

Yann always filled him so well.

But this time Yann didn't last. He came with a cry, his stiff cock letting loose onto the prince's cock. Tai'vi stroked and stroked him, and whispered encouragement. Rohit was almost completely silent, but for a few bitten-off moans of his own. He seemed to be bringing his bandaged fingers to his mouth, tasting what he could collect of Yann's spend.

"Very good," the prince said faintly, after a few minutes, as if it took effort to form words. "W-will you entertain him while I prepare him for his next pleasure?"

It took Tai'vi a moment to realize Rohit was speaking to him, not Yann. He must have answered in the affirmative, for then Yann was turning, and before he knew it they were all on the soft black carpet before the fire.

Tai'vi kneeling. Yann bent over. Rohit behind Yann. Rohit reached for a pot of something on the mantel, and Tai'vi realized that he meant to take Yann in the arse. The prince began working that rear pucker, it looked like, while Yann panted and faced his spouse.

Yann was green-faced, trembling. His cunt likely felt as empty and needy as Tai'vi's. But he took his spouse's little face in his hands and kissed Tai'vi, gratefully. Tai'vi gave himself up to it. Yann always tasted so strong, so good. The feel of his hands on Tai'vi's chin was a relief.

"Are you alright?" Yann managed to ask, when he broke off and kissed up to his spouse's ear.

Tai'vi managed to nod.

"Stroke yourself," Yann begged him. "Please."

Tai'vi had been so overcome, thinking of Yann, tasting Yann, smelling the sharp musk of Yann's arousal, that he had scarcely noticed his own little cocklet was awake. He put his hands on it, hissing in a breath at how sensitive it was. He played the little thing, hearing himself mewl at the building want in it. He wished _he_ had something in his arse now, in his cunt, but no. 

That was Yann. Yann being speared on the prince's strange, bandaged fingers. Yann holding onto Tai'vi, as if he needed to be grounded. Yann breathing so hard, but fixing on Tai'vi.

Tai'vi wanted his cock so badly. He whimpered, and then he was scooting beneath Yann, mouthing at the newly softened prick of his spouse. He wanted to taste it, taste the heavy branching green veins, taste Yann's sweat. Yann bit off a sound when Tai'vi's little mouth closed on the tip, and Tai'vi moaned huskily the minute he tasted it, so firm and grounding in his mouth.

"Perfect," breathed out Prince Rohit, as if this was just what he wanted.

It seemed to be what Yann wanted. Thick, heady precome pooled out onto Tai'vi's waiting tongue as he hardened again. Tai'vi got his fingers around the shaft and lapped it up, letting some of it spill onto his lips. Yann was moaning insistently now, and if he closed his eyes Tai'vi could nearly pretend that it was just the two of them. 

Nearly. Yann had flailed for an end table, trying to balance, to keep himself bent over. For Prince Rohit was still behind him, stretching the ring of muscle at his backside.

And now there came the strange, odd sound of bandages being unwound.

Tai'vi took in a sharp breath, even around the heavy cockhead in his mouth. He sucked, as he should, but his mind was not on the sucking. His mind was awhirl.

Did he dare?

He was young, but he was not a coward. As his hands stroked Yann's shaft again, he slowly pulled off of the cockhead. It took some twisting, some craning of the neck, but Tai'vi is an acrobatic sort for all his plumpness. He managed to angle himself to the side while still stroking his husband, so he could look just beyond the firm curve of Yann's thigh and arse, and see--

Nothing. The bandages, unwound, revealed nothing. Prince Rohit was unwrapping himself, his cock, his arse, his thighs, his legs. And there was simply nothing there, nothing but the merest glimmer to indicate a person existed at all.

Tai'vi gave a small whimper, quite without meaning to.

Prince Rohit's bandaged upper body snapped up.

"Cover his eyes," he managed, and this time he was speaking to Yann. 

Yann did this without question. Tai'vi, meanwhile, had let his hands fall away, frozen in shock and fright. What -- what _creature_ was using them? What force, what spirit had Yann sold himself to, what--

"I had hoped to get him to fist you," Prince Rohit said, voice strained as if with great arousal. "You do love it so, Yann--"

Tai'vi gave a noise of complaint, for Yann _did_ love it, but only he was supposed to know that.

"--but he is perhaps too frightened. We have neglected him. Come to the bed. It should be warm there by now, for the fire has been going some time. You will taste your little spouse, Yann, and distract him while I take what I need from you."

-

There are times when the mind is so overwhelmed that all minor details slip away. This is what happened to Tai'vi in the moments that followed. One moment he was kneeling on the soft carpet, realizing that he and Yann were fucking a ghost. The next he was on the large black-covered bed, and Yann was carefully murmuring reassurances to him, helping him slip off his own woolen trousers. 

Tai'vi _was_ slipping them off. He moved as if possessed. It was like he had committed himself to this, and now could not turn away. That seemed to be the strange power of Prince Rohit Nakhul, a power which likewise acted on Yann. They gazed into each other's eyes, knowing this, breathing hard.

They were committed to the prince now. 

Tai'vi gulped. It frightened him so. He could hear the prince rustling around behind him. Unbandaging himself. Revealing himself for --

For nothing.

"Lie back, Yann," the prince instructed. "And you, my little darling. Put your plump knees on either side of his face. That way you will not have to see me."

 _I cannot see you anyway_ , Tai'vi wanted to protest, but he understood what the prince meant. Better to not have to see the nothing. Better to be able to pretend there was _something_ , instead.

By now, fright had quite taken care of whatever neediness he'd had in his cunt. So, as he kneeled over Yann, hands fisted in Yann's hair, Tai'vi's poor spouse had quite a time of it, trying to coax Tai'vi's clamped-cold little cunny to flower for him. Tai'vi himself was no use at all, hiccuping and crying, wondering what they had gotten themselves into. It was only thanks to the insistent, hardworking warmth of Yann's tongue that he felt any lick of pleasure at all.

And now the prince was making noises. Familiar ones. Wanting, lustful ones. Slick body noises, of a hole being lowered onto Yann's half-hard cock. Yann himself whimpered into Tai'vi's cunt, and then they could both hear as the prince began to fuck himself.

" _Yann_ ," he moaned, almost lovingly. "Yann! You're so fat and thick! I'll suck you off myself when I've had my first load, yes? Yes, Yann?"

Tai'vi was astonished at the affirmative Yann mumbled right into his spouse's cunt, as if Tai'vi were not there at all.

That rather undid the spell. This had gone too far. Tai'vi refused -- _refused_ \-- to take part in this any further. He swung his legs off of his husband's face and turned around, ready to launch himself at the specter that was Prince Rohit, and--

The prince was snapping into focus. 

Not swiftly. The process was fuzzy and uncertain. But there was more of him than there had been before, much more. Tai'vi could now make out the beginnings of a pair of muscular brown thighs, and strong brown forearms balanced on Yann's chest, the bandages coming undone there by the sheer force of the prince fucking himself. The cock, too, looked like it would turn out to be brown, although the cocktip was still quite invisible. But perhaps most astonishing of all was the fact that the prince was shaped...shaped as _they_ were. Enough of him was visible now that Tai'vi could see he was fucking himself in the cunt. He had a glimmering, invisible cunt, shimmering slowly into view along with the rest of him.

Tai'vi was young, but he was not a coward. He swallowed hard. Then he crawled to the prince, who was still moaning his thanks to Yann.

Slowly, he peeled back the bandages on the prince's face.

Darkish blond hair, or it would be, if the prince kept coming into view like this. A high, handsome brow, and a wide handsome nose. A generous, attractive mouth, and a firm jaw. Pointed ears.

The prince was an _elf_.

An elf quite in the throes of passion. He curled his hands -- shimmering into view, all but the tips -- on Yann's chest as he fucked himself, his cries insistent. His elven cunt, what Tai'vi could see of it, was drooling onto Yann's prick. His princely pole, too, was leaking, bobbing up and down, straight and firm in its want. 

Tai'vi could not help it. Now he started to go wet again. There was Yann, his handsome Yann. And now there was another, quite as handsome as he was. Not a carnal, horrible man at all, but a downright _beautiful_ elf, with glowing brown skin, who was chanting out such desperate thanks as he fucked himself on Tai'vi's husband. 

When Yann came inside him, it was with a nearly apologetic groan. Tai'vi whipped his head about and locked eyes with him, and Yann looked almost contrite.

Prince Rohit only shuddered, with his whole body, and Tai'vi could see how his broad brown thighs tightened. He was clenching, clenching around the rubbery-slick, heavy prick inside him, as Tai'vi had done so many times. Trying to milk it for all it was worth.

"Y-yes, _please_ give me your cum, Yann! Please!"

Tai'vi didn't know how he knew it. But somehow, the act, the lovemaking, had made Prince Rohit shimmer into being. As himself, a well-proportioned, attractive elf.

With shaking hands, Tai'vi removed the prince's black-shaded glasses. The eyes that blinked at him were odd: a warm brown ringed by dark blond lashes. But the rest of the prince was elven, that was certain.

Or mostly elven. By now his tips had shimmered into view. 

Most elves at this time had green tips, for the blue-tipped elves, the naiads, they had been cursed to sleep beneath the sea. And the red-tipped elves, the saluads, they were rare, and hardly ever appeared as elves anyway. 

Prince Rohit's tips were a purple so dark it was nearly black. 

"What are you?" Tai'vi gasped out.

The prince blinked at him, only just coming to. He was breathing hard, and made no move to pull himself off of Yann's softening cock. It took several moments for him to reply, and his face -- which was quite open and expressive now that Tai'vi could see it -- suggested that he intended to choose his next word carefully.

"Alone," he said.

The word was quiet and final in the black gloom of his manor.


	5. How Great Lanit Returned to Sand-in-the-Mists

There was a long pause when Tai'vi was finished. 

Dumayi was the first to break.

"But what happened _next_?" he demanded. "What sort of elf was he? And you and Yann -- did you leave? Did you stay?"

"The ending is a bit abrupt," Arrat murmured.

Tai'vi's golden eyelashes fluttered.

"I have so few tales to tell. Let me save what happened next for the next hour of stories--"

"A nice way to keep us on tenterhooks," Dai'nat said, huffing out an exasperated breath. "But fine. Have it your way. I hope you have an explanation for the prince, however. Purple tips! As you well know, the _one_ rule for the hour of stories is to avoid those endless lies about a lost fifth tribe of elves--"

"I never said anything about a lost fifth tribe, so I have not broken any rules ," Tai'vi swiped back. "And there is no explanation for the prince--"

"Oh, and another thing! _Did_ you eventually fist Yann?" tittered the shameless Dumayi.

Anka paid attention to none of this chatter. He only said, mostly to himself, "Prince Rohit seems terribly sad."

He did want an explanation for the prince. He wanted an explanation, too, for the enchanted walking stick and for the Vyaghra. But now that he had been here for long enough for the sun to begin to fall, for his green fingertips to prune up in the clear blue water, he was beginning to suspect that the hour of stories was not precisely _about_ explanations. 

He would have liked rather more of a resolution, though. He worried for Prince Rohit. He knew what it was to feel so alone. Particularly in Monrovia. He wasn't sure he wanted to believe that -- that any other elf had ever felt that way. That, while he had suffered, not so far away another elf had been suffering as well. 

He closed his eyes and sank lower in the warm water. 

Poor Prince Rohit. Poor, _poor_ Prince Rohit.

Sea-birds called to each other just beyond the cliffs, and he could hear the ocean breaking on the shore below, and he was warm, and he was with other elves. But Prince Rohit, if he existed, was all alone in a cold manor house in Monrovia, and--

"Anka?" Dai'nat said carefully.

Anka opened his eyes. All of the other elves were looking at him. He shifted uncomfortably, not liking the attention.

"It _is_ sad, isn't it?" said Arrat with a smile, actually responding to Anka's careless, dejected little observation.

"He sounds like a dear, Prince Rohit," Dumayi added, flicking his braid and making droplets dance on the water.

"He is, rather," said Tai'vi, letting his plump little legs float up before him. He exhaled. "Well. Who goes next?"

"Me!" Dumayi said at once, which was a relief to Anka, as he wasn't sure he wanted to go at all. "Me! Me! I have _such_ a tale! I've been saving it up--"

"You always say that," Arrat sighed.

"Well, this one is really fantastic! My best one yet! I shall tell you about--"

-

**How Great Lanit Returned to Sand-in-the-Mists**

Great Lanit is the D'Ayyri, the ancient elf, who bore the D'lani. 

He was just a small elf then. He and his three clutchmates were simple elves with no color in their tips, birthed by the darkness of the universe itself. As they were the very first tribe of elves, they had no one but each other, and one day this proved not to be enough. So Lanit found a grove all dappled with sunshine and began to hum, and the hum was a prayer. And his belly soon swelled, and soon enough he bore, painfully, ten new little elflings, who were tinted by the green-dappled sun that had fallen on Lanit in the grove.

These were the first D'lani. The dryads, the second tribe of elves. From these first ten dryads were born every clutch of D'lani which has followed after. So Lanit is the elven grandfather and grandmother, the sire and relli, the father and mother to every last dryad that walks the earth.

Lanit walks the earth, too. Because Lanit was born of the universe, and is the universe, he cannot die. None of the D'Ayyri can. They shall live as long as the sun does, as long as the sky does. For a thousand years Lanit lived with his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren, and it was a thousand years of perfect prosperity. Every clutch was equal to every other, and every nest had the guidance of Lanit. 

Lanit knew the name of every dryad, and knew what his children needed before they did. Lanit could foresee all the years that would come, and could predict every perfect happiness that blossomed on the horizon. Lanit was king, and god, and beloved by all.

But one day Lanit left.

To this day, no elf knows why. It was said that, until that time, no storms had dared touch the D'lani islands. Only light rain, misty and perfect, which gave enough to keep trees bearing fruit but never truly blocked out the sun. But on the day Lanit left there was a horrible storm, and his children went to his nest for comfort and could not find him. 

They found only a marking from Lanit on the bark of his great tree. A strange marking, which contained three symbols. 

_O_ , for the world.

 _Re_ , the symbol of a pair of legs, which meant _to walk_.

 _Yo_ , which is the symbol of a curse.

Lanit had decided to go on a walk. Lanit had decided to walk around the world. That is to say, Lanit had abandoned them.

This is why, to the D'lani, abandonment, or _oreyo_ , is the greatest crime. Because no greater pain was felt by their people -- and even still, after Monrovia, no greater pain has been felt by their people -- than to have their relli simply leave without explanation. Ever since, storms have wracked the islands, and wickedness has touched their lives in great cycles. First a thousand years of war with the D'Nara, the naiads, the third elven tribe who were born of the D'Ayyri Narat. Then, when peace was obtained, the loss of their new allies to the curse which sinks the lands of the D'Nara beneath the sea. And, lastly, the Monrovian conquest. 

Until Lanit returns, and makes right the _oreyo_ , there will always be wars and conquests and pain, and every elf will simply have to make do as best they can. This was what Dumayi Leaps-Freely learned on his relli's knee, in the heart of a dank cave, hiding out from the Monrovians.

At that time, D'laniara, the combined nation of Nara and the D'lani islands, did not exist. The D'Nara still slumbered beneath the sea. And the Monrovians controlled everything.

They controlled the little island of Leaps-Freely, where Dumayi's relli was from. They controlled the great island of the once-prosperous and respected Weds-Leaves-to-Sea clutch. They controlled every island, and they controlled the waters in between, and they controlled the jungles they had razed to build sugar plantations, and they controlled the rivers and the trees left standing, and all the places of sunlight. 

But they did not control the slippery, dark, cold caves beneath the center of the forest, where Dumayi's relli and sire had fled to avoid being enslaved on the sugar plantations -- or worse, sent to Monrovia.

Most of the Leaps-Freely clutchlines died on the sugar plantations, or in Monrovia. Most of the clutchlines have died that way. That is why there are so few dryads now. For much of Dumayi's life, until Monrovia surrendered the islands back to the dryads, he thought there simply were not very many dryads left.

Just himself, his sire, his relli, and his four little clutchmates. The cave was their universe, the one safe place for them. But in the cave food was scarce, and their sire, he gave what they had to the rest of them, and in due time their sire could not go on this way, and died. And in the cave sunlight was scarce, for the cave was far beneath the earth, where the rivers wind along beneath the jungles, and elves need sunlight. Their relli did not get enough, and grew very sad over it, and in time he too died. So then it was just the five small elves of the Leaps-Freely clutch, who were very small indeed, having grown with such little food and such little sunlight.

Dumayi was the smallest. He was also the boldest. Sometimes he left the cave, to go climb the trees and spy upon the busy Monrovian sugar plantations which stretched over the Western side of the island. There the Monrovians now employed their criminals instead of elves, for they'd killed all their elves. This saddened Dumayi, but interested him too. Criminals are interesting people.

And sometimes Dumayi even ventured out past the jungles, hiding in the tall underbrush, trying to reach the beach.

He and his clutchmates passed the time in the cave telling stories. That is a tradition among elves: the hour of stories. Their relli had taught them this tradition, and they kept it up after their relli was gone, and Dumayi was most interested in the story of Sand-in-the-Mists, the strange, golden island which had once housed Lanit's great tree, far at the southern end of the archipelago. There Lanit had once had his nest, and there, in the days of prosperity following the end of the D'Nara war, a beautiful bathing palace had been built for young naiads and dryads to come and congregate. 

Sand-in-the-Mists had no arable soil, so the Monrovians mostly let it alone. From the beach, Dumayi could see the empty island and the half-broken rubble of the bathing palace. 

One day, he resolved to visit it. 

He told no one of this plan. His siblings did not approve of his adventuring, fearing he would be caught by the Monrovians. So he resolved to build his canoe in secret. It is no small feat for a little elf to build a canoe, and he was just a child. But one of the stories his sire had told him had involved the building of a canoe, and he remembered it well. So by the time he was nearly fourteen, and nearing the end of his infancy, he had it. A small canoe, very small, but just the right size for Dumayi Leaps-Freely.

It is one thing to build a canoe. It is another to learn to row it. This also had to be learned in secret, in the warren of underground rivers in the cave network, while his clutchmates slept. 

Dumayi may be small, but he is a determined sort. By the time he was nearly fifteen, he had mastered his canoe, and felt ready to set out for Sand-in-the-Mists.

On a clear night, when the Monrovians were all abed and his clutchmates were too, he dragged his canoe from the cave network to the beach. There, he pushed it out onto the waves and climbed in, and began the long journey to Sand-in-the-Mists with only the moon to guide him.

How vast the ocean was! And how the moonlight sparkled on the water! Birds that never came to the shores chittered and squawked above him, and dove low to give him their greetings. He rowed and rowed until his little arms were sore, and slowly the island of Sand-in-the-Mists came closer, its ruined, ghostly shapes coalescing into something realer. 

Something of old D'laniaa, of a nation that was very nearly gone. 

Within an hour Dumayi was sore all over. But he refused to stop rowing, thinking only of all the elves that had come and gone before him. Thousands of them, and this his only way to know them. This the only place left of theirs. 

It took nearly three hours to reach Sand-in-the-Mists. Dumayi collapsed gratefully on the beach when he arrived, after dragging his canoe to safety, and for the first day he simply slept on the sand, exhausted. 

When he woke, he went to his canoe and helped himself to some of his water and food (Dumayi had thought ahead, for though he is small, he is not stupid). Then he felt refreshed, and he set out to explore the bathing palace.

The Monrovians had desecrated its beautiful elven carvings, and stolen the pearls set into the sides of the pools. The pipes which had once delivered clear, perfect water were now rusted and unkempt, and strange algaes and slimy mosses coated nearly every surface. Dumayi wandered the halls of the bathing palace, careful where he stepped, unearthing half-destroyed wall-paintings of elves long gone, pretty blue-tipped elves and green-tipped elves, elves with their bellies swollen, elves with the inset jewels of their fingertips stolen right off the walls.

Once there had been hundreds of them. Now there were, as far as Dumayi knew, only the five left on his little island of Leaps-Freely, hiding out in the caves. He felt a great sadness come on him like a wave, as he stood in the empty bathing hall and listened to the ocean, the calls of the sea-birds. 

But no elves. Not any more.

Sometimes, in this sort of sadness, there is a completeness. Elven mourning rituals are complex, and require a whole community to do the special leaping dances of commemoration. Dumayi had no community. He had only himself. But he cleared a place in the main room, brushing aside the shattered pale blue tiles of the floor, and there he did the dances as his relli had taught him. 

It took several hours. He was exhausted, somehow exhausted more mentally than physically, by the time he finished, kneeling in the palace of his forefathers. 

Then, after a few heartbeats, a few gulps to clear the lump in his throat, he felt ready to leave. 

But as he wound his way down the ruined path to the shore and his canoe, something was off. Not quite his balance. Not quite his stomach. Not quite his eyes or his throat, or the strange heaviness in his limbs. Not quite the dryness in his mouth. Not even the odd, new wetness beginning to stir his cunt. 

He usually wore rags, which his sire had long ago stolen from a sugar plantation. They were thin, loose Monrovian clothes — a shirt for a much larger being, and a ripped line of cloth to serve as a belt. Now, all this felt too heavy on him. It seemed to choke Dumayi. And he was so, so hot, hot all over, panting with a thirst he could not explain. 

He downed most of the last of his water when he reached his canoe. But this was no use. Still that strange need pulsed in him, a need for...for _something_. He ripped off his clothes, and his trembling hands found the slippery folds of his little mound. 

Oh! Oh, how it _needed_!

There was a coarse, desperate pressure building in it. Like he needed to urinate. But not quite that, for when he stroked at his folds, at the slick wet there, he couldn’t help but moan. He was not sated, but somehow this felt good. Felt like it might give him what he wanted. He knelt on the sand next to his canoe and played both hands through his little slit. 

He was making so much _wet_. Slippery, gushy, and a bit thick, a sort of slime of need. He did not understand what was happening, for feeding it by fucking his fingers only made the need climb more. And how his hole was giving!

Dumayi was a virgin elf, a child until this point. Had his relli survived to see this, he might have learned at once what had come upon him. The elven heat, the period of need and want which signals a young elf is finally ready to be bred, to be fucked and filled with young. 

As it was, Dumayi had no idea that was what he wanted. For hours he forced his little fingers into himself, stretching himself until it hurt. Once or twice something in him loosened and broke, and then he was dripping more than before, dripping so much it made him cry out, dazed, overcome. 

That was good. But — but he needed _more_.

He managed to crawl into his canoe, which was more comfortable than the sand. He sprawled out in it, thrusting his hips furiously into his hands, crying with need. The sun began to go down and the moon-birds commenced their voyages across the sky, and still Dumayi’s body tormented him, desperate for something hard and big to come fill him up and quiet the hungry want in his cunt. 

Elven heat can last a week if not sated. It was perhaps for the best that Dumayi did not know this, for by the time night came he was quite sure he would die. The sickness that had taken hold of him was too great, too mysterious. Why did he feel so empty? He was shrieking into the slats of his canoe, just trying to fill himself. But it was not enough. 

By the time the humming came, he was insensible. 

It was not his humming. But humming has certain rhythms which make it comforting to an elf all the same. Dumayi was comforted without even knowing it, for a deep, secret part of him recognized the hum for what it was — another elf — even without his conscious mind really understanding it. 

In the dark, through his need, he felt a pair of arms lift him from the canoe. 

He was too far gone to fight. Just the feel of being drawn into the other elf’s arms helped ease some of the overbearing discomfort tingling over his skin. He burrowed into the bigger elf's arms as he was carried back to the bathing palace, working his hips still. The strange elf smelled strong and somehow animal to him, wonderfully animal. His dry little mouth went very wet, and he began to want to suck on something as badly as he wanted something to drive up into his cunt.

The bigger elf fed him two fingers to quiet him. He sucked greedily, moaning. He could not help but wonder what it would be like to have such long fingers in his needy little cunt.

The other elf laid him down in the circle Dumayi himself had cleared earlier, the smooth stretch of the bathing palace where he'd done his mourning dance. Though it was the dead of night, and very dark, some faint rays of moonlight broke through the shattered roof above them. Through this, Dumayi could make out a white-haired elf with a cool expression and deep-set, large eyes. The elf smoothed back Dumayi's tangled hair, and kept crooning to him.

He was also undoing his own clothes. Strange, mud-splattered clothes, as if the elf had traveled a long way. Dumayi hiccuped, still frigging his cunt, and watched as the elf bared his long legs with their muscular black thighs. His cock.

It was a proud, thick pole in a nest of white hair, much wider in girth than the tiny little cocklet Dumayi boasted. Like Dumayi's cunt, it was weeping, pearled liquid appearing at the fat tip. 

Dumayi found himself making greedy sounds, reaching for it.

"Yes, yes, we're getting to that," the elf said, sounding amused. He batted Dumayi's hands away, making the little elf whimper. Then he climbed over Dumayi, so that his much larger body covered Dumayi completely. 

Dumayi keened, arching his back. The feel of all that smooth, hard muscle on the other elf, and how their sweat-slick skin touched all along their chests, pebbled up Dumayi's sensitive nipples. The faint brush of the big elf's hot, fat cocktip woke Dumayi's own tiny cock--

This was some of what he needed. He blinked out eager tears, wanting more. Opened his little mouth wide, begging for he knew-not-what.

"Hmmm," was all the big elf said. He bent and kissed Dumayi, grinding the little elf into the hard-packed dirt, making Dumayi's cunt spasm again. Dumayi had never tasted another elf before and could hardly think for how much his little body liked it. He let the bigger elf drive his tongue in, get at every part of him, just as he wished that cock would drive at his cunt.

It was so long, thick, and hard against Dumayi's thigh. As the bigger elf kissed him, he moved, prodding the fat head against Dumayi's cunt lips. Fucking just his outer cunt. Dumayi gave a wail of perfect need into his mouth. He needed it. He _needed_.

"Impatient," chuckled the other elf. "Don't worry, little one. I'll fill you up soon."

Dumayi sobbed his gratitude. That was all he wanted. He wanted this elf to take him down there, mark him. He wanted a huge, hard cock inside his tiny cunt, wanted to feel _owned_ by this big older elf. 

But first the older elf tweaked his nipples, with another chuckle. Dumayi's puffy, small tits could hardly take this. They felt so sensitive that the touches were like another electric current straight to his cunt. His thighs were slimy and sticky, coated with his own juices. And the elf was still fucking his outer lips, rubbing circles across his folds and up to his clit. Every time the elf hit that it was another jolt. Dumayi was helpless but to fuck up against him, begging for more still.

"Alright, child," the great elf said eventually, and Dumayi practically sobbed out his gratitude.

He felt the big cockhead prod at his cunt. It parted his lips. The thickness was _exquisite_ , so much better than fingers.

Then, with one thrust, the big elf pushed in.

Dumayi was so wet he gave completely. His cunt parted, accepting the fuck without any resistance. It was like being flooded with cock. Dumayi felt that thrust in his whole body, thrumming up from his sensitive cunt nerves and taking charge of the rest of him. He screamed with delight, finally so full, and his little cocklet twitched and came for the first time in his life.

Then the big elf began to fuck him in earnest. 

He bucked his hips, setting a rhythm. The slide of cock in-out made such loud, wet sounds that Dumayi moaned again. Every drag out made him cry a bit, but then he was pushed into again, parted again. Dumayi was so small that his stomach bulged at each thrust, and something deep in him loved this, loved to know the big elf was filling him this totally.

The big elf wasn't gentle. He seemed to know that Dumayi didn't want gentle. And Dumayi, he was astonished at how little the rough fucking bothered him, how much he wanted it. 

The big elf gripped his hips and forced their bodies together on each thrust, so that he was in Dumayi to the hilt. Over. And over. Dumayi's cunt, so slick and sensitive, took every thrust. Until, shrieking, he felt his little cunt clench of its own volition.

Asking for something.

Then, finally, that thick cock twitched, and the big elf gave a bitten-off groan. Fluid exploded inside Dumayi, coating him, and he felt the want in him break like a dam, loosening his whole body into pleasure.

This was what he wanted. This. Hot, thick liquid in him, pressing deep into his womb. When the big elf pulled out with a _plop_ Dumayi's oversensitive cunt was still cumming. Dumayi cradled the rounded little bump of his stomach, so full with the juices that had come from the other elf. He felt those juices dribbling out of him, and as the big elf sighed and climbed off of him he pushed his little thighs together, wanting to keep it in.

He was so full. It was so warm in him. He blinked at the big elf, suddenly exhausted, and then, as the big elf ran a hand tenderly over his hair, Dumayi gave a happy whimper, and passed out.

-

When he woke, he was on the beach again. The big elf was holding him, and they were sitting by the canoe. It was still dark, but the sky was beginning to be streaked with very faint light. Dumayi snuggled into the big elf's arms. He felt sore, but he felt wonderful too. The big elf had cured him of whatever had been ailing him.

Shyly, he dared to press a kiss to the elf's mouth.

The big elf blinked at him. He was an older elf. No elf ever looks truly old, of course, but this elf seemed even older than Dumayi's sire, the oldest elf Dumayi had ever known. 

Still, Dumayi had never been happier than he was at that moment. He had thought there were no elves left in the world besides him and his clutch. But there was one elf -- this elf here.

"I didn't know anyone was living here," he told the big elf shyly.

The big elf raised a white brow.

"I don't know that anyone does," he said. "Do you?"

"Oh no!" Dumayi cried. "I live on the island of Leaps-Freely, with my clutch! But I thought it was only us, sir."

"It is not only you," said the big elf. He scrunched up his broad nose, almost childlike despite his clearly advanced age. "There are four hundred and fifty-three dryads left in the world. And more are being born every day."

Dumayi blinked. When his voice came out, it was a shocked squeak.

"There _are_?" he cried. "Impossible!"

And how could the elf possibly know? 

But the big elf only sighed again.

"Don't ask me any questions," he told Dumayi now. "I'm afraid I won't answer them if you do. I should not even have returned here, to be honest, although what I was hearing about D'laniaa so concerned me that I felt I must return. And you are lucky I did return, or else you would have passed a terrible heat indeed. Even so, I must now be leaving--"

"Leaving?" Dumayi cried, dismayed.

He felt betrayed. He didn't know why he felt that way. But it seemed to him that, having given him his cock, his good warm seed, the big elf now had no right to leave. Dumayi clutched him hard, and the big elf looked almost amused at this.

"Why would you come here just to leave?" Dumayi demanded.

The big elf grinned.

"Some might say I am making right -- what do you call it? An oreyo."

"You are engaging in an oreyo!" Dumayi cried brattily. "To put your cock into me, and then leave me! How dare you! How dare--"

"You are a very demanding little elfling," the big elf said wryly, his amusement reaching his eyes now. "You need not be, little Dumayi--"

"How do you know my name?" Dumayi demanded.

The elf waved a hand.

"My clutch and I are old enough that we know many things," he said shortly. 

Then he went on, and his tone became more condescending and irritating to Dumayi. "One clutchmate, he sleeps and dreams of all that will be. Another, a very bullying sort, he can pluck your thoughts from your mind. Me, I was never an ambitious type, and so my abilities are the meekest. But I know of the dryads. Do not fear my leaving, little elf, for in short time you will meet many more elves than I. I have made an oreyo right, and so this will be a time of luck for all of you, and you will find that your mourning dance, while proper, was quite unnecessary--"

Dumayi may be small, but he hates to be condescended to, and he hates to be spied upon.

"You saw my dance?" he shrieked. "You watched me, and admired me, and took me as a sire takes a relli, and now you dare to leave me--"

The big elf's grin became, briefly, a frown, and he dared to clap a hand over Dumayi's mouth.

"By the darkness my mother," he swore, as Dumayi, quite annoyed at him, tried to bite his palm. "I forgot how much you all can chatter! Did you not leave your own clutchmates behind to come here? Is that not a small oreyo? Sometimes people leave for _reasons_ , you know, not that it was any use explaining that to all of you-- _argh!_ "

Dumayi had succeeded in biting his palm. The big elf pulled his hand back, cursing, and now his palm was bleeding.

In the odd dawn light, the blood seemed to shimmer. Dumayi blinked at it. It was not...not _green_ , as it should be--

"Alright," said the big elf. "Enough, little one."

And then he was bringing the shimmery hand to Dumayi's mouth again, and Dumayi, shocked, tasted something bright, all-consuming, and wild.

He blinked, and passed out cold.

-

When he woke, his four clutchmates were bent over the side of his canoe, wailing and lamenting.

He had been missing for over a day. They had discovered his boat winding down to their home in the cave network. They did not realize he had left them deliberately, which was a relief to Dumayi. 

Though he did not want to admit it, he _had_ perhaps been committing a bit of casual oreyo there, in leaving them without warning.

Of course, having done this to them, he now felt ashamed, and could not confess it. Which meant he could not confess to having had his first heat, or to meeting the big elf with the shimmery blood. And there had been something else off about the elf. Something Dumayi could not quite put his finger on.

Not until a short time later, when the Monrovians began to behave unusually, pulling their heavy chests, laden with their strange Monrovian belongings, to the big ships in the harbor they had built.

Not until they left.

Not until newcomers came to the island of Leaps-Freely, tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome. Not until an elf called Hil'ki Guards-the-Branches should spot Dumayi high in a tree where he was spying on all the strange happenings in the harbor, and should quietly come up behind him with tears in his eyes and say, "Can it be? Another clutch here? Another clutch has survived?"

There had been three other young clutches hiding out on other islands the whole time. And there were hundreds more dryads in the lands of Irvidni and Ordania.

Dumayi and his clutch had never been alone.

And now he remembered what had been so odd about the big elf. That hand of his, that big hand Dumayi had bitten.

It had been a solid, handsome dark brown. There had been no other color in the elf's fingers at all.


	6. The Lord of Summer

Though a beautiful sunset had now taken shape beyond the cliff, painting the sky purple-gold-pink-blue, and though the birdsong was making melodies over the sparkling ocean below their pool, none of the elves noted any of this. For when Dumayi was done speaking, all eyes were on Dumayi. 

The smallest, boldest elf in D'laniara. 

"You fucked Lanit?” Arrat managed, after a few moments. " _The_ Lanit?"

"God," said Dai'nat. "Dumayi fucked god. Congratulations, Dumayi."

Tai'vi only settled his plump hands on his gravid belly and murmured, "And here I thought we would not be able to declare a winner today."

At this, Dumayi's sunbeam-smile erupted again. He bobbed up out of the water, balancing on the ledge, and bowed to the others, slick and slippery and pretty as a shimmer-fish. Arrat and Tai'vi made gestures of respect back, good-naturedly.

Dai'nat only said, "Hang on."

All the other elves paused. 

Tall Dai'nat, his legs stretched out on the ledge before him, glistening brown and graceful below the water, had taken on a pensive expression.

"How can we declare a winner," he said slowly, "before all the stories are told?"

And, as one, all four elves turned to look at Anka.

Anka was for once not looking at them. He had settled into a little corner of the pool formed by a curve in the cliff-face, an out-of-the-way corner where he felt he could be comfortably ignored. From there, he had been able to listen to Dumayi's story with real interest.

He had not known all that, about Lanit being the first relli. About there being a first clutch at all, a clutch of elves that were not quite elves, that were more like gods. He had not even known that once they had warred with their naiad cousins, who were quite literally cousins to Anka, as his grandfather, Ril'karrat, was a naiad.

Kouvi had told him a fair few things about elven history, of course. But Anka was so in awe of Kouvi, and so afraid of appearing stupid before him, that most of the time he was quite mute, and never asked questions. Was merely grateful to learn what he could, even if he became privately frustrated at the many things Kouvi seemed to take for granted that he must know already.

Oh, but never mind about seeming stupid. How stupid Anka _was_!

He wanted to know more. More of their history, more of what had brought all the D'lani and D'Nara to this point. He wanted to know more about Lanit, and he wanted to know about the other D'Ayyri, and he wanted to hear of the elves that had come before him, the ones that had built Sand-in-the-Mists, and all the rest of their archipelago as well.

"Anka?" Tai'vi asked carefully.

Anka's head snapped up. He had only half-heard what the other elves had just been saying (a winner? This was a _contest_?) and now his mind caught up with the conversation fully.

"Oh," he said.

By this point, it was no surprise that he was also expected to share a tale. He had been hoping to dodge this, but it would not be fair to. All the others had, as Dai'nat had said, made themselves vulnerable. Why should Anka be an exception?

 _They have not suffered what_ I _have_ , said a wild, angry part of him.

He did not like that part. He had only recently discovered that part of himself, and already he knew that it was rarely rational. 

And, in any case, who was he to say what they had suffered? Arrat had been so poor, and Dai'nat so ill-used. Tai'vi had whored in Monrovia, so Anka wasn't the only one to do that, and little Dumayi...

Like Anka, he had thought himself almost completely alone all his life.

Anka swallowed down the lump in his throat. He closed his eyes, for perhaps the way to do this was not to focus on the others, not to measure himself against them and agonize about whether they would like his tale, believe it, judge him over it--

No. None of that. The only way to do this was to begin.

-

**The Lord of Summer**

Anka had been born in Monrovia, raised in a workhouse, had his first clutch raped into him, and before long was thrown in gaol for whoring. And it is easiest to get all of that out at once. None of it is worth dwelling on, really.

Gaol is not a good place to be. Not anywhere, but especially not in Monrovia. And especially not for an inhuman in Monrovia, in the time of the Duke of Allerton.

( _Charles_ , his name was. The Duke's name was Charles, and he liked to play chess, keep songbirds, and was scrupulous about donating to a charity for the widows of sailors. These things are important to Anka, and so now you know them.) 

In his youth, Allerton was taught to hate inhumans by a lordly grandfather, and so by the time Anka was thrown in gaol, Allerton was in the business of collecting people like Anka from gaols and finding reasons to put them to death. Many Monrovian lords did this. It made them popular with humans, how they could seize up an inhuman life and blow it out like they were blowing out a match. 

Anka was quite sure, therefore, that gaol would be the end of things for him. The constable who had thrown him into his cell had threatened to give him to Allerton, and that if that happened, Anka would be as good as dead.

So please picture Anka there in the gaol: beaten and hurt. He was pregnant, too, with the beginnings of two new lives in his belly, lives that stood to be snuffed out as assuredly as Anka's would be. And he was bruised, exhausted, and hungry. And, above all, _cold_. Tai'vi was quite right about the blustery winds that wrack all of Monrovia, but Tai'vi had likely visited in the nicest season. The blooming season, which is called the spring.

Monrovia is not like D'laniaa, where it is ever-hot and perfect. Monrovia belongs to four strange, mercurial forces: careful Spring, wild Summer, decrepit Autumn, and cruel Winter. 

When Anka was in gaol, that was when winter controlled Monrovia. And so Monrovia's capital was freezing, frost coating every window, icy rain slushing down into all the alleyways. In the dank gaol cell it was coldest of all, which is a danger for a dryad. Dryads must be kept warm, lest they freeze to death. But Anka could feel the glacial cold numbing his limbs and making his lips blue, causing his teeth to chatter, and he began to realize that perhaps he ought not be afraid of Allerton.

Allerton would not kill him. The frost would.

But death did not come.

Instead, after an interminable amount of time, the cell door opened. 

Summer walked in.

Summer was a great, handsome spirit, for Summer always is. He is the finest season, the greenest and most magnificent. But he dresses and walks like a man. On this occasion, he wore a crisp suit of navy silk and green (to match the poison-green of his eyes) and his clawed spirit-hands hands were bedecked with rings. His teeth glinted in his wide mouth, sharp and dangerous, and Anka ought to have been afraid of him for that alone. But Anka was not afraid. 

With every exhale, Summer breathed out warm air, potent with life and blessed heat. Within moments he had used his magic to warm the gaol cell. He took three firm steps to Anka and then leaned down (Summer is very tall) and lifted Anka's chin with a claw. As Anka stared into his green eyes, Anka himself became warmer. He hiccuped with pathetic gratitude. He could feel the chill finally -- blessedly -- dissipate in his hands and feet, in his bruised backside and ruined whore's cunt, in his heart and his heavy, gravid belly.

Though humans, when they look on the Lord of Summer, only see a man, Anka knew him for what he was. A mage, and much wilder than anyone could guess. With the spirit of a wild red wolf that bays and bays to chase away the cold. Anka knew him and revered his magic all at once.

And Summer, still with an imperious claw directing Anka to look at him, said to the constables, "Very well. We seasons have been wanting to play a game. You see, each of us wants a slave, to amuse us and run errands and kiss our feet when we are bored.

"This one isn't much to look at. But I suppose he might do."

His green eyes bored into Anka, and he shifted to clasp Anka by the neck. Then he brought the little whore's face closer to him, to his warm, silk-swaddled groin, making Anka suddenly keenly aware of the bulge in his Lordship's fine trousers.

"What do you say, little dryad?" crooned the Lord of Summer. "Will you die here? Or shall I take you home to see if you will suit my purposes?"

His fine, long fingers worked the band of his trousers almost casually. His wide mouth was stretched into a wicked, wonderful smirk. With a few quick movements, he had Anka facing the longest, hottest prick Anka had ever seen, thick and powerful in its bed of reddish-brown.

Anka whimpered. He didn't quite enjoy this, being tugged forward by the throat, made to nuzzle the soft, enormous cock with his dirty little cheek. But -- but it was so _warm_. He opened his little mouth almost without thinking, and let Summer feed him the cocktip.

Heat on his tongue. Anka suckled it obediently, doing just what a whore should. He was so warm here, in the crook of Summer's groin. He blinked, teary and grateful.

"I think we shall try training you," Summer drawled out. "And if we like you, we shall make you the most splendid offer! You will be offered such a unique, such a special, such a _marvelous_ chance. The chance to be a little fuckpet to one of us."

This is not the sort of offer any sensible person would accept. Any person who is not low, who is not bruised and filthy and freezing, who doesn't have two little lives in their starving belly, hungering for warmth and sustenance--

Any person who has lived like a _person_ would not accept such terms. 

Anka did not really accept them either. He had a cock in his mouth and could only moan around it, trying not to choke at the dizzying pole of heat slowly sliding deeper on his little tongue. He squirmed fruitlessly, and when the claws on his throat tightened he felt his sore little cunt clench, too, for the pain came with such lovely warmth.

"I believe I shall take that as a yes," Summer drawled out, and Anka felt the claws clasp him so hard his brain went blank, as the hot magic snarled its way through his body.

He struggled for air, for breath. To _say_ something.

But inside him there was nothing, now, but the slow, careful control of Summer. Making him pliable. He was lulled to calm, warm obedience, right there with that big prick in his mouth and those claws closing around his throat.

-

He woke below the Lord of Summer.

He'd been bathed, and given a woolen sleeping shift. The scratchy fabric was bunched up around his big belly, and he was in a great, feather-soft bed. 

And warm. So warm. But warmest of all inside his core, in his sore, well-used whore's cunt. Hot as anything there, as the Lord of Summer fucked him.

"W--wha--" Anka managed, rather stupidly, for he could not understand why this was happening. His cunt was aflame, fucked open roughly on each stroke. Above him was the handsome, green-eyed spirit, covering him, his body forcing Anka into the bed. Jostling him with every thrust. But Anka's cunt seemed to enjoy it. 

He was wet. So wet. The hot, searing pain of the fuck was delightful to him, making his little nipples pebble and stick straight up, the big prick dragging along his channel. His Lordship's heavy balls smacked his little arse, and Anka could only yip like a silly little puppy as he was fucked, properly fucked.

"P-please!" he tried.

And then he stopped, for he wasn't sure what he was begging for. Not that his Lordship _stop_ , surely.

He liked this. He was a proper bitch, Anka was, a whore born. He'd been whoring all his life. But he had never been fucked so full, so hot. Never been fucked like to chase the winter away, to keep him so dazed and warm.

"W-will you come inside me, m'lord?" he managed pitifully.

Hot cum. Thick in him. His little mouth watered something dreadful at it. Oh, he _hoped_ \--

The Lord of Summer snorted like Anka had said something especially dim-witted.

"Of course," the fine, noble magician said carelessly. "What else are you _for_?"

-

Well, Anka just about lived for that cum. 

It was good in him. The Lord of Summer, with a cruel, pleased smile dancing about his lips, made Anka plug up his little cunny to keep it in, and Anka thanked him profusely for that. Thanked him as he worked the thick carved phallus his lordship had given him into his weary little cunt. All to keep the wellspring of summer heat inside him, heavy in his fucked-out channel.

"Turn around," the Lord of Summer said, when that was done. "I want the rear. If you choose to be _my_ slave, then all your holes belong to me, you know."

He had his fingers in Anka's open mouth, feeling around Anka's teeth as though Anka was a horse. By now, the little whore's woolen shift was sweaty and extra-scratchy, and Anka hiccuped with discomfort. When his Lordship removed his fingers, he turned over obediently, raising up his rump. 

It usually hurt, getting fucked in his arse. But he wanted to hurt for his Lordship. Wanted to do everything for him. Anka had been raised in wintry Monrovia, raised to do nothing but suffer in the cold, and now here there was this magnificent lord. Handsome, changeable, and so blissfully _hot_.

His warm fingers clenched Anka's thin arsecheeks.

"How would you feel if I fattened you up?" he crooned. "Made you _pretty_ , my little pet."

"Please," Anka agreed at once, nodding into the soft pillows. He was such a thin, ungainly thing. So ugly. He wanted to be pretty, pretty for his lordship.

"Rings in your little tits," murmured the Lord of Summer, hot breath ghosting on Anka's back hole. Anka moaned a bit, and wriggled beneath his hands.

"And in your cunt," his lordship continued. " _Bells_. Would you like that?"

Anka had no idea if he would. And if he stopped to think, perhaps he might realize he wouldn't, wouldn't like to be so tarted up, so obviously pierced and branded a bitch. But who thinks in the face of hot summer magic?

Not Anka. He was helpless before his Lordship’s spell. Now the heavy, wonderful warmth was pressed over him again, as his Lordship shifted and lined his huge cock up with Anka's arse. 

The head prodded at the rim. Anka whined. It felt like a burn, like too much forcing its way inside him. His guts wanted to reject it. But _he_ didn't want to. The big, wide cock shoved its way in, slow and torturous. He felt all that hot spearing him, hurting him so deliciously.

His little cocklet was hard, and his cunt was wet. He blinked happily at the pain.

"It's awfully fun to ruin you," said the Lord of Summer, almost casually, as he began to move. As he began to make Anka understand, really understand, what a needy little cock-slave Anka truly was.

-

These things are the smallest, the merest sample of the bright, hot, painful pleasures the Lord of Summer taught Anka. They are only the beginning. And, like Tai'vi, Anka has to save some of the story for the future. He has such few stories to really tell, after all.

Suffice to say, when the Lord of Summer was done with him, Anka was _begging_ to be his slave.

Literally begging. On his knees. Filthy with his Lordship's cum in his cunt and on his rear and painting his round, sluttish belly. Anka closed his eyes and clenched his fists on his naked, skinny thighs, and begged and begged.

Summer laughed. He had a warm laugh, breezy and deep, and it rolled over Anka.

"Sweet thing," he chuckled, ruffling Anka's hair as he fed Anka his cock again. It was soft. Anka began to suck on instinct, but Summer's hand on his throat stopped him.

This time the cock let loose a warm, bitter stream that wasn't at _all_ what Anka was expecting. Piss. Anka choked on it, in shock, but Summer did not let him loose until he'd drunk it. 

When the nasty swill was all drunk up, Anka blinked, confused. The warmth in him, on him, had started to take on a strange, unpleasant tinge, humid and oppressive. Why -- why was Anka made to do _that_?

Now, the Lord of Summer no longer seemed so wonderful. Now he seemed a bit cruel. Cruel and wild and heedless, his ever-present warmth choking Anka with its sour taste. He gazed down at Anka, lip curling, and pulled out of his mouth. He rubbed the cockhead on Anka’s thin cheek and said, lightly, "We're getting ahead of ourselves, my Anka. Of course you want to be my slave. It's only natural. But it wouldn't be a game if we did that?"

"A game, my Lord?" Anka said fearfully. "But -- but I don't _want_ to play a game--"

"You won't be," Summer said, with a grin. "You're just the little tart we're playing _with_."

-

There are four seasons. Not just the magnificent Lord of Summer -- handsome, changeable, and so blissfully _hot_. But also the cruel, vicious Queen of Winter. The careful, change-sowing General of Spring. And the aged, repugnant King of the Autumn.

And slaves do not get to choose who they belong to. 

"What do you have there, Summer?" boomed the King of Autumn, when Summer led the naked little slave into the banqueting hall of the Seasons. "Dryad? Can't abide dryads. Never fucked green cunt before, but I hear they're all blond, you know, the dryads. Can't abide blonds."

Summer prodded Anka forwards. He had spelled Anka to crawl like a little naked dog, and so Anka crawled, his heavy whore's belly and little tits and cock swinging, to the King of Autumn. 

Autumn is an enormous man, guzzling up all the last dregs of the year. On this day he was seated at his banqueting table, enjoying a great meal, but when he caught sight of Anka, he chortled, letting food fly out from the corners of his mouth. 

"Hang on, this one's black-haired. Always liked black hair," he said, around the food in his mouth. "Where'd you find him?"

"The gaol," Summer said blithely.

"Think he might suit?" said Autumn interestedly. "T'fuck?"

"What else could he be good for?" Summer said, easy about it. "You should try him, Bardolph. You'll like it."

Anka found himself blinking back embarrassed tears. Though his brain was still fuzzy with Summer's magic, he knew he did not like to be looked on like this, like he was fit for nothing but to be hurt and fucked. Even if, for the most part, he _was_ fit for nothing but that. 

Even so. Summer was so handsome, so lordly. Anka squirmed now, hating himself, still wishing he could at least impress the fine lord.

"Think I will," Autumn said. "Like to see what sort of bitch he is."

And the heavy, enormous hand, clogged with fine rings, wound itself in Anka's head and forced the dryad down to his boots. Anka snapped back to reality, as his nose was ground into Autumn's massive, leatherbound feet. And now he shivered, feeling Summer's magic recede.

Replaced by something colder. More biting and unpleasant.

"I shall leave you to it," the great Lord of Summer said, and then his own footsteps sounded, walking away. 

Anka was left in Autumn's banqueting hall, trembling before the decrepit, enormous King.

"You ever been whipped, bitch?" the King of Autumn grunted out above him.

But this too is a tale for another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traumatized kid tells disjointed, fantastical, and not precisely accurate story, on account of trauma, news at eleven.
> 
> Oh no wait oh shit, have they _all_ been doing that?


	7. No Longer So Small

Anka knew it was not a particularly good story.

He hadn't wanted to tell it. He'd wanted to -- to _cloak_ it. To make it seem magical and special, like the other stories were. But in the end it had only come down to precisely what it was: sordid and sad. And he didn't have any real desire to tell the ending. Not just because he felt he ought to save some of it for another time, like Tai'vi had done. But all because to talk about it, to drag all that back into his memory, made him feel small and worthless.

The water was so hot, but he was shivering.

Two pairs of arms wound around his shoulders. 

His eyes snapped open. Dai'nat was to his left, Arrat to his right. The elves were hugging him gently, tall Dai'nat patting his hair.

"A very good first story," the older elf said gently. "And, with time, you’ll find that stories like that are easier and easier to tell.”

Anka wanted to say: _Was yours true?_

_Were any of those stories true?_

_Mine was...and yet it wasn't._

But he found he couldn't quite speak. Over the edge of the cliff, the sky was a dark blue wound through with such vibrant, lovely purple, and now the iridescent pearl walls of the pool shone a bit, letting off gentle light. And he was being held, carefully, by two fellow dryads, who were stroking his hair and murmuring kind things to him.

"You have plainly escaped them all, including that Autumn King, who sounds dreadful," Tai'vi was saying, in the meantime. He was bobbing in the center of the pool, looking kindly at Anka. "I cannot wait to hear how!"

Anka swallowed hard.

"It isn't -- it isn't a very impressive story," he said.

It didn't feel that way to him. He had stayed a slave until he couldn't anymore. That was all.

"I think it's fantastic!" Dumayi chattered, still hopping about on his ledge. "To be trapped in a cruel game played by the seasons! Did you meet that awful queen? I don't know why, but she sounds especially awful, that winn-turr queen--"

"She is," Anka said hoarsely.

Was. _Was_. He would never have to meet her again. 

"Let Anka tell it in his own way, in his own time," Dai'nat chided. He and Arrat were still stroking Anka's hair. 

"We all look forward to it, Anka," Arrat now said, kindly. "It's funny, how things that seem so frightening and terrible can still make interesting stories. And sometimes when you are done telling them, you feel better. You were plainly in a bad place, with that awful Lord of Summer--"

"He isn't--" Anka began.

Then he snapped his mouth shut.

He was awful. And he wasn't. And -- and maybe that was why the story made Anka feel so small. Because still something in Anka missed him. Because Anka wanted to understand why someone so magnificent had still found it so easy to hurt him. 

And why the Earl had then decided to be kind to him, later on.

What was the purpose of that?

He blinked rapidly. His eyes were wet. Dai'nat now brought Anka’s head to his own breast and stroked his hair languidly, carefully.

"You still like that Summer," he said, his tone very even and surprisingly free from judgment.

Anka nodded, crying in earnest now.

"There is more to the tale with him," Dai'nat decided. "Yes?"

There wasn't, really. He was in Monrovia, and Anka was in D'laniara, and maybe -- maybe the reason Anka had told this story was to convince himself that that was for the best. 

-

He had thought they would leave when things were done, but they did not. Now they sat and chattered about real things, current things -- the supreme kindness and handsomeness of dear brother Hil'ki (this from Tai'vi, with a sly wink), Kouvi's upcoming expedition to the Isles of the Manganor, and that awful Yennit. Dumayi dove several times to the bottom of the pool and held his breath for fun, and Arrat washed Anka's hair for him.

" _Such_ a pretty color," the beautiful dryad said, a bit wistfully.

"It really is," agreed Tai'vi, who was floating while Dai'nat hummed friendly cousin-songs at the new clutch in his belly. "Anka's hair is so perfectly dark! Like the sky!"

That was properly black above them now, cut only by the diamond-bright stars, so Anka could hope, fruitlessly, that maybe his green blush wasn't too visible.

"You are the loveliest little thing," Arrat sighed at him, strong fingers massaging Anka's scalp. "If you ever get tired of Hil'ki, you are more than welcome to come sample my Yorrat with me--"

Anka rushed to protest that there was nothing with Hil'ki, but now Dumayi shot up from the bottom of the pool.

"Sleep with me, Anka!" he cried. "Oh, please! But only if you want to! But it shall be so much _fun_ \--"

"He cannot sleep with you," Tai'vi chided, almost indulgently, as Anka's green blush deepened to full-on viridian. "Pet you a bit, yes. But not actually sleep with you, not proper sex. How would that work? Both of you so young, in your bearing years--"

Dai'nat paused in his humming to make a strangled sound.

"Do you think there are no true pleasures to be had by two elves in their bearing years?" he murmured. "Oh, darling, I have _such_ a story to tell you..."

-

Later, they dressed together and walked together to the canoes. Anka felt sleepy, hungry, and comfortable, and Tai'vi called ahead to Yann, by the shore, to come bring them their picnic hamper.

"We shall eat on the way home, and by then Hil'ki will have supper for you, and you can eat some more," Anka's pretty friend said. "Or is that only me? I swear this is a clutch of at least five, with the way I eat..."

Ahead, Arrat and Dumayi were making excited plans to invite some naiads to their next bathing outing, and Anka heard the younger elf carelessly let slip that this time they had restricted their number--

"Not wanting to drive away that pretty Anka! I _knew_ we could get him to like us, didn't I tell you? And--"

And now Dai'nat cleared his throat loudly, and the two elves ahead lowered their voices a bit.

Dai'nat slipped his arm in Anka's as they walked.

"Where are you going now? The school? Are your little ones enrolled in the evening sessions as well?"

Anka nodded. His children would be finishing their suppers under the watchful, indulgent eye of their teachers, and then getting ready to come home. He and Tai'vi would collect them, along with Tai'vi's own older clutch, before returning to their verdant, cozy homes in the treetops.

"I shall go with you, then," Dai'nat said. "I have to fetch Philippa, Philip, John, and Johanna. I believe Johanna is enamored of your little Kalki. Such a fierce thing! Why, when he kicked Yennit at the Starlight Festival I nearly died laughing--"

Anka found a laugh coming unbidden to him as well, though at the time he had been mortified and scolded Kalki terribly. Still, now he found a topic that lifted his spirits, and conversation came easily to him as they climbed into their canoe.

Arrat and Dumayi laughingly kissed them goodbye before being rowed away themselves by Yann's surly brother, Yorrat. Arrat pressed a chaste kiss to Anka's hair and Dumayi said, a bit mischievously, " _Do_ think about my offer, Anka!"

Then, at the door to the school, Dai'nat embraced Anka.

It was a long, warm embrace, friendly and kind.

"Do you know, I still miss Grandmother Ormsbee?" Dai'nat whispered, into Anka's hair. "I thought I should tell you that. Like you miss your Summer."

Anka went green with humiliation.

"How did you know I miss him?" he managed. 

He was pathetic. He was so obvious. He was--

"You kept saying how warm and handsome he was. Over and over. As if you wanted to remind yourself that there was something good about him," Dai'nat said. He stepped back, but kept hold of Anka's arms, giving them a reassuring squeeze. "I do the same with Grandmother. She was so kind, I tell myself. So kind."

"She--she sounds that way," Anka managed, not wanting to say otherwise.

Dai'nat gave him a frank look.

"She whored me from childhood. And yet, if she were alive, I'd be begging her to come to D'laniara to live out the last of her years in comfort, with me her perfect slave. And this Summer? Do you beg him to do the same?"

"I don't even write him," Anka confessed shamefacedly.

Sometimes he wanted to, so desperately, and then, when he tried to lift the pen, his hands would shake. He wasn't entirely sure why. Summerstoke really hadn't been cruel to him at the end. Summerstoke had even said he hoped they could be friends.

But what if Anka wrote him, and he didn't write back? He could be so horrible, the Earl could.

And -- and even if he did write, even if he did have a few words to spare for Anka, someday Anka's friendly letters would have to give way. Someday Anka would have to make it plain:

_You tried to destroy me. You will never make that up. That will always lie in our history, my Lord. How badly you sought to make me small, and how well you succeeded._

Now he was trembling in Dai'nat's arms. Here, on the step of the schoolhouse, with the children's chatter pouring out through the windows. Anka closed his eyes and tried to gather himself.

"I'm sorry," he told the other elf, his voice embarrassingly thin and weak.

"For the bark's sake, don't be," Dai'nat said frankly. "That horrible man -- and yes, dear, I know he's just a man, just like I know the Vyaghra was probably some Irvidni merchant and Rohit is likely entirely made up, and the walking stick is only a stick, and Lanit even knows who Dumayi fucked, but it wasn't _Lanit himself_ \-- that horrible man can't hurt you now, surely--"

"By the end I was begging him to," Anka choked out. "If only it meant he'd see me--"

"Will you ask him to be your _avva_?" Dai'nat asked now, firmly. "Did you ask him to? Or will you put him behind you?"

"I want to put it all behind me," Anka said. "All of it. Whoring. Being -- being the filthy, pathetic thing I was, the thing I _am_ \--"

"You are nothing of the sort," Dai'nat said, firm defiance in his clear blue eyes. "How dare you say such a thing of yourself, Anka-Eleyi? Oh, I could kick us. All of us. Making you tell us things you were not ready to--"

"I -- I didn't mind it," Anka rushed to say.

It had been excruciating. But no one had looked on him with disgust when he was done. And -- and he had been a part of something, something with other elves. He had begun the day quiet and small and alone, and now...now he wasn't quite that, anymore.

He was glad. 

And now Dai'nat pulled him in again for another brief hug.

"Next time, darling, tell us something that makes you feel lovely," he said, when he released Anka. "Something about your children."

"I have fewer stories of them than I would like to," Anka admitted, wiping at his eyes. 

Fewer good stories, period.

"You will have to make more," Dai'nat said. Now the tall elf's gaze seemed a bit misty, though Anka could not tell why. "And promise me something, Anka-Eleyi. Promise me you will spend a nice long while making more stories with friends, for you are our friend now, and making up better stories about yourself, where you are not a 'whore born' or a 'bitch' or anything of the sort. Promise me you will do that, and you will not invite this summer lord anywhere near you, until you can tell a story in which you are -- in which you feel yourself to be _valuable_."

Anka blinked at him. 

He nodded.

Dai'nat wiped at his own eyes.

"Good," said the tall elf. "Good."

"I wasn't planning to invite him here," Anka said, after a few moments slowly thinking it over.

What would that accomplish? His lordship would never agree to come, anyway. He was an Earl, a great man, in Monrovia.

Dai'nat snorted.

"If you do, and he treats you like that again...."

There was a pause. Anka could hear Tai'vi's Yann trying to round up all the children in the schoolhouse, as Tai'vi gossiped cheerfully with Miss Euphemia, the evening schoolteacher.

"What?" Anka said, wholly confused now. "If I do, and he--"

"Anka," Dai'nat said, eyes bright. "I still have the walking stick."

"But you said it was just a stick," Anka pointed out.

Dai'nat slipped his arm into Anka's again and tugged him towards the door.

"Even so," he whispered, as they stepped into the bright, warm room and heard the joyous calls of their sleepy, happy children. "I can still beat the shit out of him with it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok but no lie Dumayi’s story was probably true.


End file.
